
annr 



















C.OO > 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 


































THORD FIRETOOTH 





















A blond young giant, with a dog to heel 












THORD 

FIRETOOTH 

By 

Alice Alison Lide 

M 

and 

Margaret Alison Johansen 

Illustrated by 
Henry Pitz 


i y 
» > > 


LOTHROP, LEE AND SHEPARD COMPANY 

Boston 1937 'New York 


-J 









Copyright 1937 


BY LOTHROP, LEE AND SHEPARD COMPANY 


All rights reserved. No part of this book may be re¬ 
produced in any form without permission in writing 
from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes 
to quote brief passages in connection with a review 
written for inclusion in magazine or newspaper. 



r 


PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 





Dr. Samuel Beekman Alison 
and his wife, Emma Knox Lide 


A Note of Thanks 

to our dear Jens Nielsen, blond, blue-eyed descend¬ 
ant of Vikings, whose genial self and wondrous 
library of old Norse sagas gave inspiration and 
background to a pair of authors. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 

I. 

Cliffs of Sogn . 

• 

• 

PAGE 

13 

II. 

The War Arrow . 



24 

III. 

Raid of the Jom Vikings . 



32 

IV. 

In the Sea Wolf’s Den . 



44 

V. 

Thralldom .... 



58 

VI. 

Through the Forest . 



74 

VII. 

Ghosts at Hegan 



92 

VIII. 

Down the Danube 



104 

IX. 

Cave Prisoners . 



117 

X. 

The Bride Hunt 



128 

XI. 

Hero of the Ragged Cassock 



141 

XII. 

Gates to the City 



152 

XIII. 

Constantinople the Golden 



159 

XIV. 

The Way to Royalty 



174 

XV. 

Beyond the Pillars of Hercules 


183 

XVI. 

Across the Sea . 



199 

XVII. 

Glory . 



220 


ix 




















Chapter I 


-CLIFFS OF SOGN —— 

A BLOND young giant, with a dog at heel and 
a fresh wolf hide flung over his shoulder, has¬ 
tened homeward along the cliffs of Sogn Soe. Now 
and again this Thord Firetooth, son of Jarl (Earl) 
Sigurd, chief franklin of all the free-holding frank¬ 
lins on the wild west shores of Norway, stopped for 
a space to listen. Was that a human sound, far off 
and faint? Or was it merely bird call or animal call 
in the tumult of spring that filled the air? He strode 
on the faster, ear cocked to hear again that different 
sound. 

This year, spring had been late in coming to the 
Northland. Winter, with its black days and nights, 
its shriek of storms and wolf howls, its wave thunder 
against the cliffs, had seemed to hold on forever. 
Then almost over-night, the thaw was in the air— 
little snow-falls in the mornings, but the sun coming 
up light though not yet hot; forests dripping and 
swelling; birds wheeling and circling and screaming 
joyously in the light; flighty “ha, ga, ga, ga! ” of the 
cuckoo echoing from the deep woods; song of the 
marsh frog, restless trumpeting of forest beasts. 
Uproar of spring everywhere! Through it all 

13 




14 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


strode Thord, his hunter’s ear still intent to catch 
that one different, distressful sound, should it come 
again. As his thong-bound boots found the way 
along the heights, his eyes kept scanning now the 
fens that lay below the landward slopes, scanning 
now the dark waters of Nord Fjord that fretted and 
foamed against the sea-foot of the cliffs. He saw 
nothing that was wrong. Yet, ek-a! his inner senses 
told him that trouble lay somewhere near. He 
moved on, his whole mind listening. 

Then from ahead, coming as it were between a 
seamew’s shrill call and the bass of the frogs in the 
inland, he caught as once before that faint human 
cry—“help!”—just one cry. 

Thord’s long legs carried him forward. He 
mounted the cliff height on the rounding shore 
curve; stood peering out across the waves. It had 
come from the water—that call. Then down in the 
angry sea, Thord saw a small body that drifted with 
the wave-wash. Now it rode the wave top, near a 
boat that floated bottom-side-up. Now it sank be¬ 
neath the waves. 

In one quick motion, Thord stripped from him 
sword-belt and kirtle. He must be light for running. 
The way down to water was long and hard. Here 
was only cliff drop, but further on a path wound 
down and down with foot-holds in crevices and along 
ledges—a dangerous path, but one that Thord 
knew he could make, he had done it before. 

Far below, the little body rose, went down again. 
Thord whirled back from his running. He could 
never make it to the water in time to save—not by 



CLIFFS OF SOGN 


15 


the land-path. There was one other way. He was 
back by his sword now. He cut the thongs of his 
boots, kicked off their weight, stood a moment 
poised on the verge of Sogn Cliff, saw nigh a hun¬ 
dred feet below the gleam of sun across black waters. 
Then he dived. 

Down through the air past screaming sea-birds, 
down, down, till he smote the waves, down and 
down he sank, with water closing blackly over him. 
He went to the bottom, stunned and half-senseless, 
rose, floated weakly till air revived him. Finally 
enough sense came back for him to know that he 
must swim. He got on to the over-turned boat, 
used it as a float, pushed it before him till he could 
swim alongside a little form going out on the ebb 
tide. ’Twas Gisli, Hlodver’s boy. Thord clutched 
a hand into the child’s clothing, drew Gisli to him. 
Next instant, in the clawing, clinging desperation 
of one drowning, the child clenched onto his rescuer. 
Choking, strangling, Thord went under. 

The boat had drifted beyond all hope of reach, 
when the swimmer at last fought back to surface. 
His childish burden hung limp against him now— 
insensible. 

“Hola, Odin—help me—” the Norse fellow 
breathed the name of his god, “help me get him to 
shore—before the death-bird steals his life!” 
Striving to hold Gisli’s head above water, and de¬ 
pending mostly on his powerful leg-stroke, Thord 
began his swim for land. Here was the fight for 
life. The cliff wall loomed sheer and high against 
any landing. The tide-draw sucked fiercely at the 






16 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


burdened swimmer, seeking to sweep him out to 
sea. 

Thord Fire tooth swam till his very bones went 
numb, floated a space, swam again—heading always 
for a shelf of land far down the shore beneath the 
cliffs. The sun hung low by the time he reached that 
land-shelf and dragged himself and his burden up 
beyond the lash and pull of the waves. 

Wetness, chill, utter weariness posessed him— 
yet there was still work he must make himself do. 
Thord struggled up to his knees, began a regular 
movement of the child’s arms, stirring the breath of 
life back into that small form. 

Finally Gisli came to, opened eyes, saw who bent 
above him. Weakly he caught at Thord’s hand, 
held it to his cheek, wearily shut his eyes. 

Progress up the cliff trail was slow. Holding the 
little boy in his arms, the tall young Norseman set 
his feet carefully into crevice there, onto a ledge 
here, and went up, step by step,—resting when 
rock shelves were wide enough, pushing on dog- 
gedly. 

With the top gained, he set his burden down, 
stood there in the sunset glow, and breathed a great 
breath. Ek—the worst was over now! 

Far on ahead of him, through a slashing in the 
forest, he could see the settled lands of Sogn Soe, 
the temple on its cliff, Jarl’s Sig’s great castle. 

Thord the Firetooth, son of Sig, stooped and 
wrapped the shivering little Gisli in the hairy 
warmth of the new wolf skin that he had left flung 
down here on the cliff top. Then he, himself, drew 
on his crimson kirtle, bound on again his boots and 



CLIFFS OF SOGN 


17 


sword and belt. Shouldering-up the child, he set his 
feet on the home trail. 

Because royal blood flowed in his veins, this 
Thord Firetooth could wear an edging of royal 
minever fur on his kirtle, could wear a jewel-hilted 
blade thrust into the sword-belt of golden rings at 
his waist. For all his young lankiness, the fellow 
stepped out with military precision, and his hand 
was forever slipping to his sword hilt. War was his 
birthright. On that day when he had first seen light 
in the great, sturdy, hewn-oak castle of Jarl Sig, 
he had been duly “water-sprinkled” in the good old 
pagan way and given his name “Firetooth” because 
of the strange fact that he had been born with two 
tiny teeth—a valiant omen, so a hastily summoned 
old wise-woman, or vala, had prophesied to Geirhild, 
his mother. 

According to custom, he had been endowed with 
everything on his father’s estate that was born or 
made on the day of his birth. So over his oaken 
cradle, Hlodver, the warrior-harper, had chanted a 
fierce birth song: 

Thord the Firetooth 
Then was born 
In great Norseland; 

Born to sax, 

Born to sword, 

Born to long brynja. 

With ring-adorned helmet, 

Born to sword, 

With horses and men, 

Shall he fight for 
The lands of his father. 




18 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


Of a truth, Thord Firetooth had been born to sax 
and sword. These were troublous days in the 
Northland, with internal wars, with jarls and king 
at each other’s throats, with Sweyn Fork-beard 
raging to the south, and with the pirates of Joms- 
borg swooping hither and yon. 

Great days they were, though, full of travel and 
warrior merchant princes, and the vikings having 
a hand at ruling in all the courts of Europe. Even 
some of the vikings went as far as the frozen shores 
of Greenland, and still others to Asia, the ancient 
home—so Norse tradition had it—of the “Asa 
folk” as the Norse tribes had once called them¬ 
selves. 

Jewels and swords and much of luxury were 
brought home to the barbaric splendor of the great 
Norse castles. These castles, with high smoky 
rafters and beaten earth floors, contrasted oddly 
with their owners’ carved and gilded high-seats and 
ermine robes and golden armlets. 

Very early in life the “omen jar” had been set 
before Thord to seal his fate by whatever object 
his hands grasped from within it. Had his fingers 
clutched the peeled willow wand cut with sacred 
runic writing, he should have been dedicated to 
Thor, and become a temple priest. This would 
have gone hard with grim Jarl Sig, who longed for 
a warrior son to rule after him. A number of other 
occupations were fated by a bag of earth, by a bit 
of wolf hide, by tiny figures of horse or sword or 
spear. But Thord’s young hand had drawn up 
out of the weird omen jar a glittering little golden 




CLIFFS OF SOGN 


19 


boat. There had been rejoicing then! The sign of 
the golden boat meant that Thord the Firetooth 
was to sail far waters in the greatest of all Norse 
careers, a warrior king that battled on the seas. The 
old Jarl had been so pleased that he had sacrificed 
six fat kine, a ram, and a stallion to the gods in 
thanksgiving. 

Thord Firetooth’s earliest remembrances were 
of things martial. At the age of three his war 
training had begun. Hlodver, the warrior-harper, 
had taught him to handle his own tiny bow and 
arrow. From thence on that training had never 
ceased. In accordance with the hard Norse code 
of soldier building, one rigorous hardship after an¬ 
other had been laid upon him until his body was 
both supple and tough and like unto a smoked ash- 
wood bow frame. A stripling, verging into man¬ 
hood, he could ride like a demon, making the run¬ 
ning mount from the ground to his charger at full 
gallop. His sinewy young arms could whirl the 
sword or combat at archery with the best of them. 

Small wonder that Thord Firetooth striding 
homeward along the cliffs felt his heart beat hot 
with excitement. On the morrow at the great spring 
festival to the sun god, he was to match his skill 
with other young bloods at the war games of the 
North Country. This new wolf skin, wrapped now 
about little Gisli, he would later take to the temple 
as an offering for the gods of luck to be with him. 

As the Firetooth reached the watcher at the 
castle gates and passed within the walls, loud clang 
of a sword beaten against a bronze bowl rang out. 




20 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


That was the castle’s call to “evening meat,” and a 
welcome call it was. Thord passed through the 
outer room, lifted the heavy leather curtain and 
entered the great hall of the castle. He set Gisli 
down beside his father, then made his own way up 
to the high table where were gathered the Jarl’s 
family. 

“Thord—Thord, you’re wet,” whispered his 
adored fair-haired little sister, Thora, when he 
stooped to slip into her hand a pretty stone he had 
picked up on the fens. 

“Pulled Gisli out of the water—his boat turned 
over,” was all Thord said. 

Jarl Sigurd sat at the head of his table. He looked 
royal in every inch of his great height—eagle nose, 
piercing blue eyes, beard falling on his cloth tunic. 
A bearskin was flung across the back of his carved 
high-seat. Beside him sat Geirhild, his wife, stately 
in cloth of woven wool and stag hair, and belted at 
the waist with a silver girdle. Thord and Thora 
sat with these above the two huge salt-cellars. At 
the lower end were the jarl’s henchmen and men-at- 
arms. 

Within the great castle hall of Sogn Soe was a 
compound of richness and primitiveness. Fire blazed 
cheerfully on a wide hearth, but there was no chim¬ 
ney, merely a smoke-hole in the roof. For windows, 
there were high, narrow slits that let in a little light 
in summer, snowflakes in winter, and served best of 
all as loop-holes from which to hurl down weapons 
upon an enemy. To light the evening meal, torches 
blazed in iron holders set along the walls. The long 




CLIFFS OF SOGN 


21 


trestle boards of the table bore no cloth. There 
were no forks, None in those days had ever heard 
of such. Instead, there were good spoons of rowan- 
wood, and men unsheathed daggers to carve their 
meat. Wooden trenchers and bowls held the food— 
savory, steaming masses of stewed mutton and 
reindeer meat floating in gravy. Men reached strips 
of barley bread, fingers too, into the bowls, took out 
what they needed, but had the grace not to encroach 
on their neighbor’s lawful section of the dish. Oh, 
the Jarl’s men were well versed in the courtesies of 
their times! Chief glory of the Jarl’s table were his 
tankards and ale mugs, many of them solid gold 
and silver, handsomely carved, set with great rubies 
and emeralds that gleamed in the torchlight along 
with the jewels set in ring-belts and head-pieces. 

The small Gisli, leaning against Hlodver’s knee, 
now and again pulled his father’s head down to 
whisper into his ear. Children were not supposed 
to speak aloud at the table. Gisli’s whispers were 
tense—the tale of the over-turned boat—the long 
drift in the dark waters—the strong form that 
hurtled a hundred feet down from the cliff to save 
him. 

Hlodver looked toward Thord, but did not speak. 
He, the castle scald and story-teller, was most silent 
of men till his mind had imagined what he had to 
say. He slid his harp round from its place on his 
back, set it between his knees, drew his hand across 
the strings—a throbbing melody that turned men’s 
eyes toward him. 

The melody throbbed on. Hlodver still sat silent, 




22 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


his mind forming his words. At last he rose and 
stood at full height, and his rich deep chanting rang 
through the hall. 

Beyond Sogn’s black cliffs, 

A child is drifting and drowning, 

Sea waters sweep over, 

Sea waters close over 
Gisli—Gisli, son of Hlodver, 

Sinking in death. 

Now from the cliff top, 

The towering great sea-wall, 

One stands on high and 
Looks down on the sea, 

Sees there a child 
Sinking in death. 

Quicker than bird wings, 

Quicker than thought, 

That brave one leaps down 
From cliff top to sea, 

Leaps to save Gisli 
From sinking in death. 

Who is that brave one? 

That brave one is Thord, 

Thord the Firetooth, 

Son of Sigurd. 

Then skoal to Thord, 

Skoal, skoal to Sigurd’s sonl 

Such was the song that Hlodver sang. It was his 
thanks to Thord. Men echoed it in a shout of 
“Skoal, skoal to Sigurd’s son!” 



CLIFFS OF SOGN 


23 


Hlodver reached into the hearth and drew out 
a blackened coal. With it he made a rune writing 
on the wall. It read, “Thord saved Gisli,” put down 
in the crude symbols of the Northland. 

“Good,” said Jarl Sigurd, “that shall last long on 
our walls.” 

“ Twill last longer in my heart,” answered the 
scald. 



Chapter II 


THE WAR ARROW 


T HORD FIRETOOTH excitedly wriggled a 
clean skin under new garments. This was the 
great day—spring festival day of the Nordland. 
The whole universe looked as clean-washed as he; 
bright skies; sun as polished as new bronze; trees 
dripping a little in early morning freshness. 

This was the day when the north country rit- 
ualistically shed the old dark deadness of winter, 
greeted the sun-glory in a triumphant celebration, 
and began the new life of a year. 

Thord was out early. But even so, already in the 
walled yards of Castle Sogn Soe many bon-fires 
had been blazing. Men and maids had been hard 
at it, hauling out from beneath fur covers the old 
straw of winter beds and sticking the torch to it in 
blazing heaps that were the first fires of the spring 
ritual. 

On every side the castle doors were set open to 
greet the sun. Within, walls were washed clean of 
winter’s soot, and hung with festival velvets and 
banners. 

Like Thord, the men and boys had raced for the 
river, plunged in for their spring cleansing, and 

24 





THE WAR ARROW 


25 


leaped out tingling, to thrust their glowing bodies 
into all new clothing from kirtle to boot-thong. 
The ladies and maids had been at it, too, but dis¬ 
creetly behind walls where little shrieks popped out 
when wooden piggins of water were dashed on. 

Bowers of green branches had been set up down 
in the valley, ready for the feasting. Space had been 
prepared for those who wished to camp in the open. 
Plots of land had been marked off for the racing and 
wrestling and war-games. 

Men, women, children, and cook pots moved out 
of doors. 

A smell of festival rose full on the air—sweet 
smoke of the fires, aroma of holiday fare drifting 
up from the pits, seethed kid, barley groats boiled 
in milk, mutton hams, little bitter-sweet loaves of 
acorn flour, wine of cranberries, honey spiced with 
myrtle. 

On this day, from Jadar at the south to savage 
Finestrand on the north, all the people of Nor¬ 
way were acknowledging the return of the sun with 
new fires on the hill tops. But here at Sogn Soe was 
especial celebration, for on the cliffs of Sogn towered 
a great temple to the sun god. Norway, even in the 
late years of the tenth century, was still pagan and 
worshiped the visible gods of the sun and the moon 
and the stars. True, a few trader-travelers, who had 
journeyed into far southern waters, had been 
“prime-signed”—that is, signed with the cross. But 
to these canny vagrants the sign of the White Christ 
meant little else than a form of passport that al¬ 
lowed them to barter and trade with the Christian 



26 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


merchants of the rich southland. In their hearts, 
these Norse travelers still bowed to Odin and Thor, 
the Hammerer. 

In the natural amphitheater of the valley below 
the temple heights, the pagan pageant of the spring 
festival filled the greensward. Here were gathered 
together for a few days of happy camp life in tents 
and cowhide roofed wagons, the dwellers from 
castles and fenced villages, the farming folk, the 
traders from river boat and sea craft. 

Over everything swarmed boys in leather jerkins 
and wolfhide boots, dare-devil youngsters that got 
continually in everybody’s way. This nimble-legged 
throng poked its inquisitive nose into all things. 
Now they lay prone behind the palisades surround¬ 
ing the sacred grove and, with awe prickling down 
their spines, watched the fire sibyls take omens 
from the entrails of bulls and make incantations 
and brew magic broth. 

Then they were off to watch the spring mating 
of the yearly crop of brides and grooms. This took 
place in the great stone sanctuary on the cliff where, 
on a raised platform in the crypt, reposed the ring— 
the glittering ring of solid gold, so heavy that a 
man could scarce lift it. Here the young couples 
were wedded by laying their hands upon it, for the 
golden circle represented the sun, the Norse god of 
all. After so much of solemnity, the boys surged 
relievedly down to the gayety of the gypsy traders 
bawling their wares, the horse racing, the dancing 
of the sword throwers. 

Through this motely throng of screeching, tus- 



THE WAR ARROW 


27 


sling youngsters, Thord Firetooth made his rather 
scornful way. A few festivals back he had been such 
as these, but now he felt immeasurably older. He 
was to contend in the man games this year. 

He passed on into the temple to offer up his 
wolfskin to the gods. Coming out through the gates, 
he paused to give greeting to his mother and little 
Thora who were just entering the sanctuary. The 
child clung to him for a moment. She fairly wor¬ 
shiped her blond young giant of a brother. To give 
him luck, she whispered a rune of charm words after 
him as he hastened away to the horse paddocks. 

Here within a walled compound was to be staged 
the wildest imaginable contest—the stallion fight. 
Only Norse dare-deviltry could have conceived it. 
Only Norse hardihood could face the hoof-thunder 
of the stallion ring. It was a game for the gods 
and all the high-born chiefs of the countryside were 
gathered for it. There was Egil of Arinbjorn, a 
slender young fellow kirtled in many-colored Eng¬ 
lish cloth, largely embroidered in gold and set with 
gold buttons all the way down the front; there was 
brawny, high-shouldered old Jarl Kyrri, mantled in 
wolf-hide lined with crimson; and Halldor; and 
Thorolf and Ogmund and many another husky 
jarl. 

Thord’s stallion, Firefoot, was entered in this 
contest. It was a terrific battle, almost as if history 
had turned back her pages a few eons and staged 
some contest of antediluvian monsters. The neigh¬ 
ing, screaming, pawing, upreared beasts seemed to 
fill the paddock with their raging. Behind them, 




28 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


alongside them, yea, hanging to the very tails of 
them, followed their masters, howling, urging, prod¬ 
ding, in imminent death-danger every moment and 
all unaware of it. Thord came out of this hell’s 
melee the victor, violently happy and miraculously 
whole—with only a hoof scar on his scalp and one 
leg bruised atrociously. But he felt no pain, only 
a surge of power rushing through his veins. He had 
won at this! He would win at all things! His wolf¬ 
skin on the altar was bringing him luck. 

But fickle fate turned against Thord thereafter, 
and he won no more that day. Others carried off the 
honors at slinging and stone-throwing and dirk- 
play. And in the wild bull hunt, it was Egil who 
slew the creature and brought in the tail as a 
triumphant tassel to his headgear. To think that 
this fop of an Egil in his English-bought finery 
should have done that! It fairly turned Thord’s 
stomach with jealousy. For this bull killing was no 
mild affair. The huge, lumbering, yet deadly swift 
creature had been maddened with dogs. The nimble 
Egil, for all his gold buttons, had shown himself 
a hero when, leaping from his horse, he had thrown 
himself astride the mad brute’s neck, and only by 
the swiftness of his dagger had saved himself a hor¬ 
rible horning and trampling. He had come up out 
of the fray covered with blood and glory, and the 
other hunters had borne him home in triumph on 
their shoulders. 

Thord was sportsman enough to do his share 
toward bending a shoulder to bring home the victor 
in proper style. But as he strode along his disap- 




THE WAR ARROW 


29 


pointment came near to choking him. Why, O why 
couldn’t he have won at the bull chase instead of 
the stallion fight? This latter seemed now the more 
glorious. And how he longed for glory! But the feast 
day was drawing to its end. One contest only was 
left now, and that was reserved for those chiefs who 
were battle veterans. On this sacred day of the sun 
god, no callow stripling who had never been to the 
wars could bend his bow in that most favored of all 
Norse amusements, archery. 

Against the oxhide target set upon the hillside, 
many a Norse noble sent his arrow. Then finally 
the game narrowed to a contest between but two, 
Jarl Kyrri and Jarl Sigurd. In the play-off Kyrri 
shot first, and the arrow went to the very center. 
Then Sigurd lifted his bow, twanged the shot, and 
lo, his arrow entered the notch for the bowstring 
on his rival’s missle and hung there, tying for hon¬ 
ors at the target’s center. 

At this a great shout went up and “tu-tu-tua!” 
blared the lur blowers, challenging the contestants 
to further triumph. 

Who—who would win? The whole countryside 
was on tiptoe and shivered under the delightful 
thrill of it. 

Then the grim old Jarl of the wolfhide mantle 
straightened his shoulders and lifted fierce eyes to 
his opponent. “Dare you try with me with that skill 
test of royal Randver, to shoot a golden chess piece 
from off a living target’s head?” 

And before Jarl Sigurd could answer, a fellow in 
crimson kirtle and belt of gold had leaped forward 




30 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


to stand between the contestants, shouting: “Hola, 
here’s your living target!” 

It was Thord Firetooth, hot-headed, intrepid, a 
little wild-eyed at the risk he was taking. But this 
was his chance! The last glory of the festival day 
should now be his. For death or for life, he was 
where he most wanted to be, in the very midst of 
the royal war game of the veterans. 

Jarl Sigurd stood silent and pale. Affairs had 
taken a turn not to his liking. Life-risking of his 
only son went hard with him. Only his honor held 
him to the contest, and there was a look in his eye 
that boded ill for grim old Jarl Kyrri and all the 
Jarling’s retinue if aught went wrong at this target 
shooting. 

“But grant me first shot,” was his husky ac¬ 
quiescence to the contest. 

And now others skilled in archery came forward 
to prepare Thord Firetooth for his place. A long 
linen cloth was tied round his head, and two men 
held the ends, so that he could not move when he 
heard the whistling of the arrow. Jarl Sigurd went 
to his stand, muttering a prayer to his gods, and for 
an omen made the circle sign of the sun before him¬ 
self and before the point of the arrow before he 
shot. 

“A-twanga!” flew the arrow. 

Every breath in the vast concourse was stayed. 
Then—“a-a-ah!” came the gasp of relief, as clean 
and clear, Jarl Sig’s arrow swept the golden piece 
from Thord’s head without so much as lifting a 
hair. 



THE WAR ARROW 


31 


Then Kyrri’s arrow flew. A good shot that, but 
just a little close. A shallow cut nicked Thord’s 
scalp. 

The Firetooth stood blinking out through a tiny 
trickle of blood, forgetful of so slight a scratch in 
the surge of rejoicing. 

Sigurd won! Sigurd won! 

Jarl Kyrri, like the worthy foeman that he was, 
wrinkled his stern old face into a smile and con¬ 
gratulated his opponent on the feat. 

Amidst the hurrahs, another arrow flew—the war 
arrow of the Northland. Into the turf arena it fell. 
And just beyond the palisade, the bowman that 
hurled it fell also, gasping out his dread message: 
“To arms! Pirates of Jomsborg are on the raid. 
They’ve burned Verbek, they’re burning Holmin!” 

Jomsborgers coming! The dread Jomsborgers 
who slew the old and spared only the young that 
could be sold into slavery! 

Festival ended in tumult. Swift steeds were 
roped in. Hoof-thunder sounded on cliff trail and 
valley trail—men galloping westward, northward, 
to warn out the clans. 



Chapter III 


- RAID OF THE JOMSVIKINGS — 

E RE the long shadows of dusk fell on that festival 
day of the sun god, the message of the war 
arrow had transformed the peaceful courtyard at the 
mighty hewn-oak castle of Sigurd of Sogn Soe into 
an armed camp. Already some hundreds of men of 
the winged helmet, vassals of the Jarl, had as¬ 
sembled and set up their black war tents in a hol¬ 
low square. Each hour saw other fighting men pour¬ 
ing in to swell the ranks. If only the pirate horde 
would hold off for a space, Raud Hawkeye, brother 
to Jarl Sig, would be down from the north to fight 
for Norway. Even now was Hlodver, Sigurd’s tall 
harper and swiftest rider, speeding the war arrow 
across the marshy fens to him. 

Here at Castle Sogn all was keyed to a strained, 
busy, disorder. With bent backs and hurrying 
shovels, men threw up high protecting walls of turf 
against the fenced yard and dug a line of ditching 
beyond the fencing. Within the barricade white¬ 
faced women of the household turned their hands to 
warlike tasks—melting great pots of lead for point¬ 
ing sling missiles, plaiting strong willow twigs to 
cover shield boards. In the midst stood Geirhild, 

32 




RAID OF THE JOMSVIKINGS 


33 


still in her festal velvets, but with housekeeping 
belt bound on in haste, busy among her men and 
maids, directing armor work, seeing to food and 
drink for the defenders. To the fringe of her robe 
clung the frightened little Thora, her fair hair still 
caught in its festival cap of netted gold and her 
necklace of rune-carved bangles still about her 
neck. 

Above all sounds roared the thuds of hammers on 
anvils, beating out arrow-points and lance-points 
in red-hot showers of sparks. By flare of torch 
lights, old Snorre, the tanner, drove his half-naked 
crew as they sweated and strove at stretching 
tough bullhide across shield frames and pegged in 
bronze studs and bosses. 

Through the night still other fighting men 
trooped in, husky plowmen and salt burners and 
fisher folk from along the Fjord. They came with 
much blowing of horns, and bearing strange weapons 
—fish tridents and clubs of ash wood and fire- 
hardened cudgels. Jarl Sig outfitted these with 
spears and shields from his own store as long as it 
lasted. With ceaseless energy the old leader mar¬ 
shalled his recruits, drilled them till the beaten earth 
of the courtyard resounded to the heavy tread of 
liege men practicing in ranks the shield burg, the 
spear attack, the sword thrust. The JarPs blood 
was up; fire was in his eye. No Norseman pines 
to die abed. To the thrill of coming battle Jarl 
Sigurd lost twenty years. 

There came a shout from the watchers. 

Archers mounted the guards and commanded the 




34 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


hill slope. From below, through the moonlight, a 
dark line could be seen approaching. Regular tread 
and rumble as of a war chant came to ear. 

But Jarl Sigurd halted the arrow flight and 
stepped into the night to listen. No pirates these! 

The troop drew nearer. The priests of Sogn 
marching out with their treasure! There were 
carved bowls of the blood sacrifice, robes, jewels. 
On they went to hide the sacred furnishings away 
from vandal eyes in the cliff caves. Their weird 
chanting drifted out behind them: 

By the omens, 

Valkyries ride, 

Valfodi calls, 

On to Valol! 

On to Valol! 

Presently the priests returned and joined the de¬ 
fenders of the turf walls, flinging off robes and un¬ 
covering mail-clad bodies beneath. Priests were 
warriors in those days. 

Still again the night brought forth other seekers 
of the castle fort. Shouts from the watchers greeted 
a weary band of half-naked refugees plodding up 
to the heights through the ghastly pre-dawn moon¬ 
light. Behind them lay plundered homes. On their 
tracks hung the Jomsborgers. 

Pirates behind on the land, pirates before on the 
sea! Now was it battle to the death! 

Suddenly, at the break of day, into the long arm 
of the sea came the Jom’s fleet, dragon ships with 
gaping beaks, great striped sails, and oak-wicker 




RAID OF THE JOMSVIKINGS 


35 


housing to protect the pirates from the stone-throw¬ 
ing catapults manned on the cliffs. 

On they came, forcing a landing beneath the 
Viking battle roof of close-held shields that saved 
the raider’s heads from spear and arrow. A multi¬ 
tude of pirate warriors swarmed up the Nord Fjord 
shore like a pestilence—iron-clanking giants, tat¬ 
tooed faces, two-pronged spears, scythe-edged 
swords, war howls. The whole terrible yelling 
horde charged at once! From the forests beyond 
Sogn answered their brother ravagers who were 
harrying the country overland. 

Sigurd’s men, behind their turf and wood walls, 
met the tumult of sound with bellow of war horns. 
Shield clanked on shield as soldiers mounted the 
ramparts. Above mad clamor of lur blowers, rose 
the war chanting of the priests of Sogn, “Hola 
Odin! Hola Odin!” 

With a fierce shout the pirate leader leaped high 
and shot the first arrow. An answering challenger, 
tall figure in glitter of new armor, rose above the 
turf works to hurl back barbed defiance. It was 
Thord, who dedicated all his wild young courage to 
the affray. Others leaped to the wall beside him to 
meet the onslaught—Egil, Ogmund, Halldor. A 
few hours gone, these had contested each other 
hotly. War now bound them close. 

The hosts met. Came clang of shaft and gaflock, 
hideous whine of a thousand crossbows, shrieks of 
dying men. 

Armored Norsemen had leaped from protecting 
ramparts to rush forward into the very teeth of the 




36 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


charge. Wild howls and a devilish yell, “Blood! 
Blood! Blood!” met the Norse battle cry, “Hola 
Odin! For home and sanctuary!” 

Cunningly dividing his men into two great hosts, 
Vors, the pirate leader, drew in close and closer, 
encircling the castle. All too soon his overwhelming 
numbers swept the thinning ranks of Norsemen 
back to their very walls. Furious hand-to-hand 
fighting began. On that day the Sogn soil drank 
deep of the life blood of its defenders. Brave old 
Jarl Kyrri lay slain. He had rushed into the fore¬ 
most of the fight, his mighty bow speeding death at 
every twang. But a few seconds later he had fallen, 
pierced by a dozen missiles of the foe. High on the 
slippery, blood-stained barricade, Thord Firetooth, 
like some fate-charmed godling, fought on fear¬ 
lessly, now almost alone in the midst of slain com¬ 
panions. 

“Up—to the charge!” he yelled between sword 
clashes. “Are there no more to fight for homeland 
—forward—” His words died in a gasp. As though 
the protecting spell of his charmed life were broken, 
two Jomsborg swords meeting above his helmet 
felled him with a crash. But before the death blow 
could follow, the mighty form of the dying temple 
Godi of Sogn rallied upward to his knees. In one 
last movement, before he fell dead, the stricken 
priest hurled Thord from the castle wall into the 
midst of Jarl Sig’s men fighting at the very castle 
door. Swift hands bore him behind the battle. 

When Thord Firetooth came to himself and 
staggered to his feet, the castle hall where he stood 



RAID OF THE JOMSVIKINGS 


37 


reeked of blood and smoke. With the loss of the 
turf ramparts, the courtyard, too, had fallen into 
the hands of the enemy, and now only the great oak 
walls of Sogn Castle stood between the remnant of 
Sigurd’s little army and death. The Jarl, himself, 
slashed in hip and leg, fought propped beside the 
main light hole. With a marvel of skill, the old 
man wielded a spear in each hand and hurled forth 
his weapons with deadly aim. His few remaining 
archers and lancers manned the other light slits of 
the thick-walled castle. The defender of the south 
light fell, head cleaved by an axe hurled up from 
without. Thord dizzily forced himself to take the 
fallen one’s place. In his heart he desperately 
prayed to his gods for a return of that first brave 
courage that had enwrapped his spirit. 

Doggedly the besieged held their ground. If only 
the Northmen of Raud Hawkeye did but come! 
Upon these was the last hope of the remnant. 

Day wore into night, a night of horrors, with 
fire-arrows zipping flames against the tarred and 
turfed roof. Blazing deaths that were continually 
smothered out under the hands of men who crept 
along the roof, moonlit targets for all below! Thord 
had twice risked his life thus, and got an arrow in 
his leg for his daring. With every death-fraught 
excursion to the top of the building, tense lookout 
had been turned to the north, seeking some sign 
of the rescuers, dark line of armed men, smoke sig¬ 
nal of Raud on the march. 

Raud’s men would come! Northman always 
answered Northman’s call to arms. The little band 




38 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


gritted teeth and struggled on through the night. 
Morning must bring help. 

Sunrise red as blood! In the great castle hall 
were gathered those that were left. Without, ar¬ 
rows swirled in a storm. Mighty battering rams, 
sheltered beneath shield-roofs, thundered against 
the walls. 

Jarl Sigurd, his face dark and fierce, dragged him¬ 
self forward, directing the efforts of the twoscore 
men left of all his hosts. “To the house-top with 
you! Up, Thord, Erik, a ten of you. Loose the 
rafters and beams to cast upon the battering dogs 
without. Women, keep behind the shields! In 
Odin’s name, hurry on with your lead moulding. 
More sling balls, more lead for arrow points! Com¬ 
rades! Friends! Carry on till the end! To the 
spoilers without, we must seem a thousand men. 
Raud will come! He may be fighting through— 
fighting through to us now—” 

A faithful trumpeter, dying among the dead, up- 
reared himself to blow a last war call for his mas¬ 
ter’s sake. 

Blood-stirred by that valiant blast, weary men 
and women manned bows and slings, answered shot 
for shot, to missiles flying against the outlets. For 
among these fighters were women, heroic ones who 
for forty-eight hours had helped at the bows, toiled 
at the lead pots. No thought of giving up had 
occurred to these women. Death would be sweet 
compared to their fate at the hands of the Joms- 
borgers. 

Above the fearful roar of axe clash and battering 



RAID OF THE JOMSVIKINGS 


39 


ram, rose the more awful roar of flames. Now the 
last hope of the Norse besieged was gone. Neither 
Raud, nor others, could save them now. The castle 
walls and roof burst into flames that no human 
hand could stay. 

Jarl Sigurd called hoarsely to Thord: “Hear me! 
My last command! ” 

In the midst of that hell of flames, the Firetooth 
knelt beside his warrior father. 

“To the cellar with you. Uncover the little Thora 
from beneath the store of skins where she sleeps 
of a drugged potion. I had thought for her to have 
slept on into death had no victory come to us. But 
Jarl Sigurd’s seed shall not be wiped out. There is 
a way, a hope. Save her. Take her out through the 
drain of the castle spring. It tunnels beneath the 
walls. Protect her—with—your—life! Go!” 

“Nay. We stay. We die the warrior death with 
you in this flaming pyre that was our home!” 

The old Jarl, his life blood ebbing, his eyes fierce 
in their last glazing, looked deep into the eyes of his 
son. 

“Go—go! ’Tis the curse of Valhal to disregard 
the dying wish—go!” And the Jarl fell dead. 

Intensity swept over Thord Firetooth. He must 
live for the honor of his race—for Thora—for his 
mother! With a cry, he dragged to her feet the 
tall fair woman who knelt above the body of brave 
Sigurd. “My mother—Geirhild—come! I must 
save you, too!” 

“No, no! Haste while there is yet time! You 
can save only one, only Thora. Geirhild goes to 




40 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


Valhal with her lord!” And with a wild splendid 
light in her eye the Norse woman seized Jarl 
Sigurd’s battle sword and thrust it to her heart. 
Standing for but a moment with arms upflung in 
lofty exultation, queen of the fire death that roared 
around her, Geirhild sank down across her hus¬ 
band. 

Thord Firetooth swayed backward, a wave of 
awful admiration surging through his soul. Before 
his eyes a great flaming oak beam of the doomed 
house crashed downward. Glorious pyre for the 
glorious dead it covered! 

With warriors, wife, weapons, all enwrapped with 
him in crimson shroud of the flame, Jarl Sigurd was 
beginning the Valhal journey as a pagan chieftain 
should. 

Pausing but to perform swiftly the last rites for 
his dead, Thord Firetooth retreated dizzily before 
the onslaught of the crashing, flaming roof pieces 
and fled down the narrow, precipitous stair set 
within the thickness of the main wall and leading 
beneath the castle. As through the suffocating reek 
of smoke he made his way down and down into the 
musty cellar depths, his ears resounded to the mad, 
victorious yelling of the terrible horde without. 

Snatching up the limp, though warm and 
breathing, little form of Thora from its protecting 
nest of furs, he entered into the dark cavern hol¬ 
lowed by the cellar spring. His only mode of prog¬ 
ress was a squirming forward, prone on his stomach, 
while he laboriously pushed his burden before him. 
For hours, years, an eternity, he seemed to live 



RAID OF THE JOMSVIKINGS 


41 


underground, inching forward through the slime 
of ages. Life, death, battle, all seemed blotted out. 
Then came light, a tiny point that grew as he 
squirmed on to it. The light came through a 
thicket-fringed hole in the ground. A familiar spot, 
this little muddy sinkhole! He had passed it often, 
never dreaming of the tunneled depths it reached. 
Now he scrambled warily out and looked about 
him. 

Behind him, and not far away lay fearful sights. 
Tattooed, clanking pirates were already looting the 
ashes of his and other homes. A shouting howling 
mass dragged off bronze vessels and carved posts 
and temple doors and jewels and furnishings. Al¬ 
ready they had despatched part of their wretched 
prisoners to the honor of the old cruel gods of war. 
A horror of fascination held Thord in a frozen grip. 

Then Thora began to awaken and whimper. In 
a panic Thord dropped back into the hole beside her, 
took her in his arms to quiet and comfort her. One 
of her rune bangles, loosed in the scraping under¬ 
ground journey, fell from its chain against his hand. 
Mechanically he gathered up the lost luck piece and 
thrust it into the bosom of his jerkin. It seemed 
an emblem of his and Thora’s life luck, broken and 
lost. 

For a day and a night he and the child crouched 
in their damp chilly hole. By degrees the furor of 
pillage above them seemed to quiet, to drift off 
elsewhere. The pirate avalanche was sweeping in¬ 
land perhaps. After the clamors of war, silence had 
fallen. 



42 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


Within the cave hole Thora, feverish and weak, 
begged in piteous whispers for food. At last Thord 
reared a cautious head up through the surrounding 
weeds and bushes. No sound, no movement met 
his ear. The smoky glow of the old castle timbers 
mingled gloomily with faint moonlight. Thord 
stepped out, paused to draw the bushes screeningly 
over the hole, and to caution Thora to utter silence. 
Then he moved out into the night and began a 
search. Nowhere in all the desolation about him 
seemed there to be any food—only ashes and broken 
casks and torn plunder trampled underfoot. Down 
on his knees where the raiders’ cook pots had been, 
Thord, seeking ravenously for bones and meat 
rinds, felt a sudden sickening tightening of leather 
about his throat, and leaped to his feet, struggling 
in a noose. 

A coarse laugh roared above him as a huge Joms- 
borg boatman dragged him along in his wake. 

“Ha, the young warrior! By Arvog’s hound, he 
and his ring armor may sell for a horn of ale! ” And 
his captor drew him on behind him down towards 
the shore edge. 

The boats—they were still at their moorings! 
Of course there were watchmen, set everywhere 
along this desolated land. A fool’s fate had befallen 
him for his lack of wit. Thord Firetooth made no 
sound, although bitterness was flooding his soul. 
But he was not yet mourning over imprisonment; 
he was bemoaning hopes betrayed, a charge de¬ 
serted. “O Thora!” he groaned. 

When the Jomsvikings’ ships and their vast boat- 




RAID OF THE JOMSVIKINGS 


43 


loads of blood-bought plunder sailed from Norse 
waters back through the Skagerrack and the Kat¬ 
tegat, and into the Baltic again, Thord Firetooth 
went too, as a prisoner, thrust down into a reeking 
galley hold with other loot. To Jomsborg, the pirate 
stronghold built on Wollen Island where the Ger¬ 
man river, Oder, flows into the sea, Thord was car¬ 
ried. And Thora’s broken, golden amulet, thrust 
beneath his jerkin, was all of the old life that went 
with the Norse slave into his captivity. 



Chapter IV 


-IN THE SEA WOLF’S DEN- 

O N two sides of the triangular island of Wollen, 
flowed the divided stream of the River Oder, 
and on its long north shore beat the storm waters of 
the Baltic. The isle stood a rocky sentinel, half 
blocking the deep, indented sea mouth of the great 
river. 

Here was built Jomsborg, stronghold of the Joms 
pirates, a strange citadel, governed by strange laws. 
None could live here who made not plunder and 
rapine their life business, and none could live here 
who scorned not death and scorned not women 
more. No female could set foot within the burg. 
No softening influence could touch the hard lives 
of the men there. Jomsborg was a synonym for 
all that was cruel and terrible. In the lands they 
raided with sword and fire, they beat out the brains 
of fair maid and old wife, cast babes upon the spear, 
and spared only strong men—that they might sell 
them into slavery. 

At present there was an incoming of pirate bands 
from many shores. Bersec Ironsides was returned 
from harrying the monasteries of Angleland, where 
the White Christ was worshiped. From the bog 

44 




IN THE SEA WOLF’S DEN 


45 


country of the Wends, Ungwahr the Shaggy had 
brought up some captured prams laden, not with 
coveted gold, but at least with a herd of broad¬ 
faced Slavonic peasantry that could be sold into 
thralldom. Last to arrive was the tattooed Vors 
with his Norse plunder. The rocky inlets of Wollen 
were jammed with sailing craft. In fearsome array 
the long ships lay like black snakes upon the water, 
and the sun gleaming fitfully through the storm 
clouds lit shields by hundreds and thousands. 

From the great hall of Vors the Cruel, master 
chieftain of the Jomsmen, was the division of 
plunder made. It was a sinister room, long and low, 
its oak beams black with soot, its walls hung with 
raven banners of the pirates, battle horns, war gear, 
and some skulls and bones nailed theron. For the 
Jack of windows, flaring torches lit the scene, and 
from a huge hearth pit the smoke of burning logs 
drifted upward to the roof hole. 

Much plunder had been portioned out, man to 
man, from rich and costly piles heaped upon the 
beaten earth floors. Here golden circle and carved 
silver blood bowl of the Norse sun-worshipers sat 
alongside of Christian cross and bell and embroid¬ 
ered trappings ravished from the altars of East 
Anglia and Northumbria. 

The human plunder had mostly been disposed of: 
fiery Celts, blond Saxon giants, dark oafs of the 
bog country, all sold into the life of thralldom and 
bound for the rest of their days to the bondage of 
plow or pack. Headmen from the great landed es¬ 
tates of more civilized nations beyond the Oder 




46 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


had bought some; fur traders packing peltries down 
from frozen Russia into the lands of the Franks 
and Teutons had bartered for others. 

Two captives, however, had not been put forth 
for sale in the slave ring. They were Thord the 
Norseman and Brihtnoth a Saxon thane. Thord 
wondered dully why they were being retained, 
though in his present state of misery he cared but 
little what happened to him. Blows and ill usage 
had been his only portion of late. The untended 
arrow wound in his leg throbbed and festered; and 
Glaf, the dwarfish churl that served Vors, seemed 
to take cruel pleasure in stumbling against the in¬ 
jured limb as he passed back and forth bearing meat 
and ale to the feasters. 

At the high table, Vors the Cruel, chieftain of 
the sea wolves, sat among his captains. At a lower 
table were feasted the lesser chiefs and their fight¬ 
ing men. As the mead horns went the rounds and 
ale flowed like water the black walls resounded to 
shouts and wild jest and the roaring song of Hubbac, 
the Pirate Scald, chanting the war deeds of one and 
another of the company. Song and drink set men’s 
pulses to beating; they craved even wilder enter¬ 
tainment, some simulation of the war game that the 
song praised. 

“A combat! A combat!” rose the shout. “Can¬ 
not Vors the Sea Wolf stage a fight to please his 
men?” 

“Ho, the Norseman and the Saxon, set them at 
each other’s throats for our pleasure! ” came further 
suggestion. 




IN THE SEA WOLF’S DEN 


47 


“Nay.” Vors stood, lifted a hand for silence, a 
cruel look glinting in his eyes. “The Saxon’s a 
nithing and no follower of the old gods. Later he 
shall entertain you well. This Norse fellow can 
match his strength against mine own varlet, Glaf, 
the long-armed. Loose the bonds, men! At him, 
Glaf!” The master accentuated his words with a 
vicious kick that flung the hideous, dwarfish slave 
headlong into the improvised arena where space on 
the earthen floor had been cleared. 

For a time the two contestants stood glaring 
upon each other and made no move to start the 
fight that had been thrust upon them. Thord, dour 
and sullen, crouched in his corner like an animal in 
a trap. Back in Nordland, men leaped free and 
eager to combat in trials of strength and prowess; 
noble met noble, and carl met carl in tests of cour¬ 
age. But this was different. He, a jarling, must 
fight this low-born beast for the pleasure of those 
drunken brutes. He’d not demean himself thus. 
They could kill him for it—better end it once for all, 
now, than be a thrall for the rest of his life. 

But Glaf, circling him, squat legs bent, long arms 
hanging almost to the floor, lips drawn back from 
teeth in a bestial grin, was taunting him as craven 
and coward. The black-haired oaf well knew of 
the other’s festering wound and expected an easy 
victory. 

The taunts did their work. Thord straightened, 
leaped. He was no nithing to stand passive under 
calumny. Memory of sundry sneaking blows this 
one had rendered him sent fury tingling through 



48 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


his veins. Glaf was at him now. They gripped and 
swayed and strained, and dust from the earth floor 
that they fought upon rose in gray clouds about 
them. 

The shouts and calls from the ring of drunken 
watchers that had gathered to revel in this bloody 
sport seemed to beat upon Thord’s ears from some 
great distance. His every faculty was needed to 
fend off this creature that fought with treachery 
and meanness, that tore and twisted at one’s ears, 
that thrust blinding thumbs into the eye. The 
wrestlers fell, rose, clenched, fell again, and with 
Thord forced under. He was near the end of his 
powers, but gathered the remnant of his strength 
to make one last muscular whirl to free himself, 
when a knife pricked at his throat and the voice of 
his opponent came to him in a hoarse whisper: 
“Cry now to me for mercy, or I will end you like a 
stuck boar! I conquer! I conquer! ” 

Even as the treacherous blade was slitting at his 
windpipe, Thord broke the other’s grasp and with 
a clean throw of wrestling, cast the knave, knife 
blade and all, from him in one great upward move, 
then held him to earth. 

“Help, mercy!” guttered Glaf as the shouting 
onlookers closed in. 

“Ho, the Nordic wins! Give him a quaff of ale! 
Would that I had put my ring gold on him instead 
of the black-browed jackanapes!” And Glaf was 
kicked unfeelingly into a corner by those who had 
wagered some part of their plunder on his prowess, 
and had lost it. 



IN THE SEA WOLF’S DEN 


49 


“A boon, great Vors! ” called out a brawny pirate 
who wore his hair in two long plaits that fell on 
each side of his face and had his arms well decked 
in huge golden bracelets. He seemed in great good 
humor, and evidently had won a wager through 
Thord’s wrestling. “Grant me this boon. Take 
back part of my spoils and give to me instead this 
Norseman as my thrall. He could serve me well, 
I trow.” 

“By Odin, not so, Ungwahr!” Vors seemed an¬ 
gered at the request, and was perhaps the more 
roiled in temper because his own thrall had been 
beaten by this one. “He has been reserved for an¬ 
other use than that. Hola, let there be no more of 
interrupting—on with the feasting, and see how 
bravely I’ll entertain you next.” He clapped his 
hands. “Forward, slaves! Set up the Saxon churl 

* 

in the combat ground.” 

As the serving men hastened to carry out the 
chieftain’s orders, Glaf, still in a state of tattered 
dishevelment from the wrestling, paused a moment 
beside Thord, who had once more been bound with 
thongs. “Hist, fellow,” he muttered. “ ’Twere bet¬ 
ter for you that you had died under my knife. Worse 
awaits you.” And shaking with silent hideous mirth, 
the creature strode on. 

Events moved swiftly now, and Thord Firetooth 
had scant time to ponder the dark words. 

As Vors the Sea Wolf had commanded, the men 
carried forth Brihtnoth the Saxon, of the fair hair 
and blue eyes, and tied him against one of the great 
posts that went up to support the roof. 




50 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


Then Vors stood before him. “Ho, thou nithing, 
thou weakling follower of this god you call the 
White Christ, listen to me! Thou canst die either 
a hard death or an easy death. Choose for your¬ 
self. Cast away this worship of the White One, do 
homage here to the old gods, sing a song of praise 
to Odin and Thor and all the ancient ones, and you 
may go to Valhal by the easy road, a quick knife 
to the heart,—or—” 

“I worship not false gods! Worship I only the 
One True God and the White Christ, His Son, our 
Saviour!” cried the Saxon. 

“Then let him save you, if he can!” shouted the 
Sea Wolf and drove his fist into the helpless one’s 
face, battering it cruelly. 

“What can one god or another matter?” thought 
Thord as he shivered to see the other captive so 
vilely treated. “Better to sing songs to them all 
than to be beaten to death.” 

In Thord’s north country, some people pinned 
their faith on Odin, others on Thor the Hammerer, 
and still others worshiped most devoutly a group 
of stars. Norse travelers to far lands sometimes 
brought back new religions that were in time 
grafted onto the old. Thus, the sacrifice of the bull 
and the reading of omens from its vitals had come 
to Norway from far distant Egypt, perhaps by 
way of Greece and the Mediterranean and the long 
sea journey around all the coasts of Europe. But 
come it had, by whatever devious route. For in 
these days Thord’s own people worshiped both the 
sun and the bull. 




IN THE SEA WOLF’S DEN 


51 


So quite naturally the Norseman thought the 
Saxon a fool not to broaden his religious views a 
bit in order to save his hide. Who could tell which 
god was best, anyway? Did not the temple Hofgodi 
—Priest—teach that one brought the rain, another 
ruled the crops, and that Thor’s hammer brought 
luck in battle? 

Vors the Sea Wolf was a hard, cruel man, and 
it was a cruel entertainment he set up for his pirate 
followers on that day. A strange target-shooting 
he inaugurated, where men were to aim, not their 
best but nigh their worst—were to barely tip the 
target instead of centering it. Instead of a shield of 
bull hide, he placed a living target before them, 
and that target was Brihtnoth the Saxon! In this 
wise did the Sea Wolf torture the Christian pris¬ 
oner who would not deny his god—a horn of ale 
or a ring of gold went to every man whose cast of 
spear or arrow drew blood on the body of Briht¬ 
noth, yet did not kill him. From the midday feast¬ 
ing till late in the afternoon the awful game went 
on. Bleeding, cut and torn, the Saxon hung against 
the thongs that bound him to the post—yet he 
could not die. 

Thord Firetooth, crouched in a corner, was sick 
with pity and disgust. He strove to turn his eyes 
away from the shameful sport of these bloodthirsty 
men. Yet even when he closed his lids he seemed 
still to see Brihtnoth, weak and fainting, yet true 
to the god he served. “Ah,” thought the Firetooth 
as he swelled his muscles against the thongs that 
bound him, “if only my hand were free, I would 



52 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


hurl a weapon true to the mark and end the vic¬ 
tim’s misery with one merciful blow.” 

Even as his pitying thoughts formed the wish, 
the spear of another entered the Saxon’s heart and 
Brihtnoth’s trial was ended. It would seem that 
another in all that wicked concourse of cruelty had 
had his fill of the shame deed done in the Sea Wolf’s 
hall. 

Well, for all his pain, his god had not saved him! 
Yet Thord and many another one were to be long 
in forgetting the look of glory that swept into 
Brihtnoth’s face as he died for his faith. “Strange,” 
thought Thord, “this one had the look of a con¬ 
quering hero instead of a poor nithing done to a 
shame death.” 

But the Norse captive had little time to be think¬ 
ing of another now. Events began to close about 
his own person with ghastly rapidity. 

Without, the storm wind that had been rising, 
gathered fury and howled around the eaves of the 
timbered hall. Within the Sea Wolf’s den a hush 
had fallen. It was as if from men glutted with 
cruelty, some Sinister Thing had demanded silence. 
And the silence held, till from out the twilight 
glow of dark spaces lit by smoky torch nubs, there 
rose a wild chanting. Hubbac the Scald, stirred 
to poetic frenzy, was singing the death song. Voice 
and harp mingled in weird wailing: 

Death cold the hall is, 

Death is here. 

List to ghostly hoof beats! 

On reddening ways, 



IN THE SEA WOLF’S DEN S3 


The pale horse cometh, 

Souls to bear to Hel. 

One is dead, 

Another shall die! 

Hel dogs howl, 

Another shall die! 

Then up rose Vors the Sea Wolf. The wild notes 
of the song had stirred superstitious fear in his 
cruel face. 

“Hel dogs shall not howl in vain!” Both fear 
and evil twisted his features. “Another victim is 
theirs. The old gods shall have their blood-fill this 
day!” 

“ ’Tis you—the victim.” Glaf crouching near 
Thord, chuckled in fiendish pleasure. “See, he 
comes for you—to give you to the knife on the 
stone—” 

Anguish froze Thord’s heart. He—the victim! 
For this, he had been saved from the selling into 
bondage. He, too, would die a shame death, a 
bound nithing hewed down on the sacrificial stone! 

The hands of Vors were upon him. 

Thord’s muscles, that horror had weakened, 
tensed back into strength as he made a mad des¬ 
perate struggle to break his bonds, to wrench his 
body from the Sea Wolf’s grip. He slashed with 
his teeth, he beat his head against his enemy. But 
he was bound—and the bonds of bull hide held. 
The great hands of Vors closed down, lifted the 
youth, flung him across his shoulder. 

Drunken men had set down their horns for a 
space to watch the struggle. Now they went back 




54 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


to drinking, or battered their vessels upon the 
boards, yelling for more drink. Ugh—there was 
a shiver in the air! Drink! That was what men 
wanted now! None seemed to have desires to fol¬ 
low their leader and his burden out into the night. 

Vors stiffened his bulky body beneath his shoul¬ 
der-load, passed through the doorway, left the hall 
far behind as he strode in darkness, his feet follow¬ 
ing a trail along the cliff above the shore. 

Now and again Thord writhed and lunged in 
that iron grip. Just the two of them—here in this 
wild darkness—Odin help him—strain the bonds— 
break them—give him a chance! 

But the knotted bull thongs held. 

Now was the end. In a lightning flash, a great 
sacrificial stone showed white, set at the base of a 
gnarled oak. Tree limbs whipped in the wind. 
Land storm and sea storm met in this high wild 
place. Wave spray beat up to meet rain spray that 
dashed down upon the stones. Lightning scarred 
the sky in vivid rents. Thunder rolled like huge 
muffled drum beats. 

Vors laid his victim across the great stone— 
lifted the knife. But the hand that lifted the knife 
shook. The death chant, with its weird prophecy 
of future death, would seem to have cast the trem¬ 
ors into the iron frame of the Sea Wolf. Then of 
a sudden its tremors ceased forever. The knife 
in the uplifted hand seemed for an instant to be on 
fire as a bolt of lightning split the cliff oak asunder, 
leaped like a fire-serpent, sped the length of the 
weapon, and struck down Vors the Cruel. The 



IN THE SEA WOLF’S DEN 


SS 


spent current touched Thord Firetooth, but only 
stunned him. As he lay in that brief space before 
insensibility overtook him, the Norseman's bedaz¬ 
zled brain seemed to vision the old gods riding the 
storm—Thorgerd and Irp whirling the fire-bow 
and the rain-spear! Then sleep was upon him. 

For long Thord lay beside the stone of death in 
a heavy stupor. Then gradually the freshening 
beat of rain against his face brought him back to 
his senses,—a miraculously spared victim lying 
still bound beside the place of sacrifice. He sat up 
in the darkness and with infinite patience began 
to move his bound hands back and forth across 
a rough edge of rock. At last, after an eternity, he 
had sawed all his bonds asunder and could move 
about. Now he must find a hiding place. 

As he circled the stone, crawling on hands and 
knees, he came against the cold stiff form of Vors 
the Cruel. With a touch of the horrors, he backed 
away in all haste, yet mixed in his tremors was a 
surge of triumph. His gods had fought for him 
that night. The Thunderer had cast a lightning 
bolt, and lo, Thord Firetooth was saved. Bah, the 
Saxon nithing's god was a poor god! He had not 
saved his worshiper! 

But the glory of the Saxon's dying face—that had 
been strange and wonderful! As Thord crept 
away to hide himself in a cliff crevice above the 
sea he pondered many things in his heart. This 
Brihtnoth the Saxon had something no man else 
he’d ever met possessed, something which had 
made him strong in the midst of weakness, glori- 





56 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


ous in the midst of shame. He had died, yet ere he 
passed he whispered, “I die but to live again!” 
What had he meant? 

As he lay and pondered, Thord drifted into 
slumber. He had suffered much and was weak. 
For a while he would stay in hiding, then when he 
was able, he must swim for it, get himself away 
from this accursed island, escape to the mainland. 
From thence, somehow, he would make his way 
back to Norway and home. Now, with limbs glori¬ 
ously free of bonds, all things seemed possible. 

Thus Thord Firetooth planned, and in his dreams 
he seemed already back at Sogn Soe beside the blue 
waters of the Nord Fjord. 

But a cruel ending came to his dreams. He who 
had visioned himself free, awoke with a new thong 
cord about his neck and with rough hands pulling 
him forth in the pale dawn light. 

“See what a hulking lout he is, masters, well 
worth the two brasses and the piece of silver, is 
he not?” ’Twas the voice of Glaf, one-time thrall 
of this Vors that was dead. “He’ll be worth two 
men at bearing a load, eh? These Norse swine 
make hefty slaves. Here, let’s get him to the 
boat.” 

As the dwarfish, long-armed Glaf parted from 
the two fur peddlers to whom he had just sold 
Thord, he paused to mutter into the latter’s ear: 
“Thou great clod that shamed me at wrestling, see 
what your strength will do for you now! I fol¬ 
lowed on from the hall and by the lightning flashes 
saw you hide. Glaf could have killed you, but in- 



IN THE SEA WOLF’S DEN 


57 


stead,” a cruel grin twitched the ugly features, “in¬ 
stead, I have sold you into the long death!” 

Before another day passed, Thord Firetooth, 
despite the arrow wound that kept him limping, 
was started south, bending under a great pack of 
furs. He had become but another pack animal 
among other beasts of burden. The thrall collar 
was about his neck. 

As he moved on with the slave train, the weight 
on his heart was as great as the weight on his back. 
His own gods, if there were any, had played him a 
scurvy trick. 



Chapter V 


THRALLDOM 


WO lonely figures sat crouched beside a great 



A round stone behind which grew a mighty oak 
sprayed with mistletoe along its branches. Here 
was almost the mountain crest of rocky Hohen- 
tweil, that guardian peak of Alemanic Land from 
the Black Forest to the Suabian Sea. Below the 
two watchers a steep path led threadlike and wind¬ 
ing down to the valley. In the first gleams of com¬ 
ing dawn were faintly visible in the near distance 
the grim battlements and towers of Castle Hegau, 
its spreading fields and lowly mud hovels of the 
thralls. Far away was the belfry of a church. 

As the fiery ball of the sun rose above the hori¬ 
zon the mountain watchers rose also and com¬ 
menced a sort of ceremony. The taller of the two, 
a blond, hulking fellow with matted hair and a 
leathern-belted hauberk, swung a bunch of mistle¬ 
toe around his head. Then he dipped it into a ves¬ 
sel of blood set upon the altar-like stone, sprinkled 
the ground thrice toward the rising sun, muttered 
a prayer to Odin, and emptied the remaining crim¬ 
son contents into a hollow of the oak. His com¬ 
panion, a weazen-bodied, big-eared, yellow-skinned 


58 





Swinging a branch of mistletoe around his head . 














THRALLDOM 


61 


Magyar, a small captured remnant of that mighty 
Hunnic host that but recently had invaded Ger¬ 
many, performed his sun ceremonies in his own 
heathen way. The Magyar did a dizzy whirling 
dance as he mumbled wild prayers to Kutka, the 
cat-headed god of the Huns. Next he drew from 
beneath his jerkin a wax heart with a villainous 
thorn thrust through it. This he hung on a branch 
of the oak tree. 

“Now hang there, heart of Bu,” whispered the 
small captive Oriental, “and see what curse the cat¬ 
headed one will bring upon you!” 

Bu, Black Bu of Hegau, was his German task¬ 
master—a merciless one at that. 

Other strange wax offerings hung upon the mis¬ 
tletoe oak, and the bleached skulls of three horses 
had been nailed to the trunk. Even in newly 
Christian Germany with its fine churches and feast 
days and processions, men occasionally lapsed back 
into hankerings after the old gods and stole out to 
the mountain tops to the old sacred spots where 
their forefathers had worshiped. 

But the two sun-worshipers of the dawning were 
not even of this land. They were strangers from 
afar and frankly pagan. 

The tall fellow started on his way down the 
mountain, limping a little. He concluded his de¬ 
votions by flinging a pinch of earth over one shoul¬ 
der. His companion hastened after him, glancing 
suspiciously behind him as he went. “Orra, a twig 
crackled—were we watched?” he whispered. 

“Perchance so, but it matters not; nothing mat- 




62 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


ters any more. It wonders me/’ he went on bit¬ 
terly, “that I did even this small sacrifice to the 
Norse gods, for they seem to have forgotten me— 
forgotten Thord Firetooth!” 

“We’d best hasten,” whimpered the Magyar— 
Vaik, they called him—hurrying alongside. “Bu 
the Black will be after beating us if we are even a 
moment late at the plowing, may cut off even our 
bean bread—” 

“Likely enough,” answered the other sullenly. 
“What more can a thrall hope for?” And he limped 
on his way. 

It was now three years gone since Thord Fire¬ 
tooth had got that limp in his leg—an old arrow 
wound from the horror night when the Jomsborg 
pirates had burned and ravaged his Nord shore 
homeland. He had passed through many another 
horror since then—bartered and beaten across half 
of Germany. Always on the go, passed from mas¬ 
ter to master! He seemed such a stupid young 
giant, sullen too, that nobody wanted him. 

They’d been glad to trade him off for almost 
anything. Once he had been bartered for a pair 
of sheep, again for a wolf hide and an elk horn— 
Oh, just anything! The fellow’s heart seemed dead 
within him. 

Grief, ill-treatment, the babble of a strange 
language in his ears, and on top of that a forcible 
bowing down to a new religion! Along with a turn 
of other slaves—some dirty Russians and Magyars 
and the like—he’d been herded into the river for 





THRALLDOM 


63 


what they called baptism. What with it all, he had 
been cowed into a sort of apathy. 

Last year he’d been bought at the Zontog fair 
by Black Bu, headman for Lord Herrich Iron- 
Arm’s great castle estate. He’d stayed here at 
Hegau longer than elsewhere. Big Bu knew means 
of getting work out of a man, even the most sullen. 

Labor, blows, a hole-in-the-ground hut out be¬ 
hind the middens and outhouses—that was a 
thrall’s life for you. At first Thord had bitterly 
resented the hut mate with whom he had been 
thrust in to sleep—Vaik, the Magyar thrall with 
his yellow, ill-shapen face and slant eyes. Ugh, a 
Norseman hitched to a tallow-faced Hun! A 
strange pair, indeed! But in the end common 
misery drew them together, that, and hate for Bu. 
And then too, after the homesickness died down 
somewhat in Vaik, his Hunnic mind got back a deal 
of its chipperness and he proved to be considerable 
of a comfort to Thord. Vaik had a dash of the 
story-telling gift, and at night, huddled together 
on the straw pallet, he could almost make Thord 
see wild Hungary, lost caves where Magyar treas¬ 
ure lay, galloping horsemen, skin tents, camp fires 
of the Nomads, song of horn and fiedla. 

If he were only free! Far lands and far waters 
called—but he was a bound thrall. And the old 
sullen apathy would claim Thord again. 

They were a sleepy pair after their chilly night’s 
watch up on old Hohentweil’s crest. The day and 
its labors seemed to wear on forever. At his plow¬ 
ing behind a yoke of bullocks, as he lumbered along 





64 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


in a pair of wooden troughs of shoes, the Norse 
thrall shook his shaggy blond thatch out of his eyes 
to watch Lord Herrich’s daughter, the Duchess 
Roswitha, and her train pass—anything to keep his 
miserable self awake. It was quite a procession— 
her brown-cowled, monkish tutor from the near-by 
Monastery of St. Ortfried, her round-headed Lapp 
serving woman, liege men with their swords clank¬ 
ing gallantly as they rode. Her fair face was like 
a flower above her ermines. 

Thord halted his bullocks to stare after them, his 
laborer’s leather-clad body steaming in the chilly 
autumn sunlight. Into the crushed, bruised soul of 
him crept an awakening, a lift of thought, emotion. 
The fair blond face, it brought recollections, long¬ 
ings. Yes, he knew now what stirred him so every 
time the duchess passed him. It was memory of 
Thora. The duchess looked so like Thora. 

“O Thora, Thora, my own sister!” and he 
dropped his head between his hands on the plow 
handle. What had become of Thora? Would he 
ever know? He breathed a prayer to Odin and 
Hammerer Thor and to the unknown Christian 
God, too, by way of good measure, that the small 
sister were safe, that she, perhaps in the North¬ 
land, were on her shaggy pony making pilgrimage 
to her shrine, even as this fair Alemanic duchess 
had been on a recent reverent journey to her 
altar. 

Ai! Well, he must be on with his clod-turning 
if he didn’t want to get a stick across the shoulders. 
Bu the Black saw well to it in his master’s absence 



THRALLDOM 


65 


that he extracted every ounce of toil possible out 
of the thralls at his mercy. 

Suddenly upon Thord’s moody thoughts burst 
screams, wild hoof beats, and glimpse of a girl 
rider galloping across the fens. 

For a moment Thord stood bewildered, like one 
visioning a nightmare; then, swift as an arrow from 
the bow, he was off after the runaway. His long 
legs that back in the homeland had been trained 
alternately to ride and race the shaggy fiery Norse 
steeds, unlimbered to an astonishing speed. Even 
his limp could not hinder him. 

Now the frightened pony was taking to the 
marshes where all was a bog from the rains. The 
gods preserve her, this girl that looked like Thora! 

Twisting and turning, leaping thicket and brake, 
Thord ran with all the wind of him bursting at his 
lungs. He got there none too soon. The Duchess 
Roswitha, clinging to the saddle trappings along¬ 
side the pony that had thrown her, was in a bog 
up to her neck. The horse was in about as bad 
shape and getting worse, as every struggle sunk him 
deeper. A great gap in the turf path where it had 
crumbled beneath those stormy hoofs told what 
had happened. 

Thord, flat on his stomach on treacherous land 
that quivered like jelly beneath him, got a grip on 
my lady’s robe and pulled like ten furies. He 
would have been sucked into the quagmire himself, 
had not help miraculously appeared at his elbow— 
the big-eared Vaik, who had raced after him. To¬ 
gether, with their leather shirts slashed into strips 



66 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


and knotted rope-like to the roots of a great furze 
bush for anchorage, they managed to drag the girl 
out. For the pony, the best that they could do was 
to keep his almost humanly flesh-colored little nose 
a palm’s breadth above suffocation. And thus the 
duchess’s scared, galloping escort found them—one 
mud-cased female safe on higher turf, and two mud¬ 
dripping fellows gallantly struggling at the horse. 

Many arms and more leather ropes got the pony 
out. All in a tremor, the duchess’s train hastened 
off, carrying their charge to the ministrations of the 
Lady Alftruda, sister-in-law to my Lord Herrich, 
who had raised his motherless daughter for him. 

Now that it was all over and the cause of the ex¬ 
citement had been wafted away amid a babble of 
serving women and men, the two thralls scraped 
their muddy selves as best they could with bunches 
of leaves and went back to the plowing. All they 
had got out of the adventure was mud in the hair— 
and, well, perhaps a certain warming of the heart. 

But the adventure of the mud-hole had not 
ended. Before dusk of that day, came a couple of 
rather sniffy stewards from the castle, seeking the 
lout of a Norse plowhand. Their mistress would 
have a look at this blond fellow who had risked his 
neck in a bog for her. 

So Thord was hustled up to an outhouse, soused 
in a wooden tub, fitted up to decent garments, and 
brought into the castle hall. 

All tingling with cleanliness and excitement, and 
with hope rising within him, Thord dropped on one 
knee and made obeisance to the Lady Roswitha on 



THRALLDOM 


67 


her high seat, as courtly as any Latin-learned 
Frank. 

The young duchess leaped to her feet in delight 
and walked down closer for the better to see the 
Norseman. Forsooth, she thought it rather pleasant 
to be rescued by one so handsome. Then she spoke: 
“Big Bu hath clumsy taste to set such a shapely fel¬ 
low behind the bullock plows! I hereby appoint 
him one of our castle huntsmen. I warrant me he 
pulls a strong bow! And now,” becoming decidedly 
royal and stepping back to her throne-like seat, the 
duchess demanded, “what boon, my new huntsman, 
would you ask of us, for having pulled us out of a 
bog?” 

“I—er—” stammered Thord confusedly, so 
much kindness, on top of all the foregone misery, 
having gone to his head until he could scarcely 
think, “I—there were two of us at the bog. Could 
that other one—Vaik, they call him—could he 
come, too?” 

So the slant-eyed Magyar was fished out of the 
straw pile in the mud hut and brought to the castle. 
However, his looks being against him, the kitchen 
was as high as he rose. He was dubbed scullery 
helper to the fat, red-faced cook. That in itself, 
though, was a decided rise in the world and much 
better than being plowhand under Bu. Gretchen, 
the cook, was a jolly old soul and sometimes pam¬ 
pered her lively new underling with tidbits of raw 
meat, a Hunnic taste that Vaik couldn’t quite out¬ 
grow, even in the midst of civilization. 

To Thord, the Norseman, this close contact with 





68 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


Germanic civilization was a revelation. Though 
humble pine knot and tarred reed torch of his 
Northland were used here too, the great castle hall 
was on occasion lit by candles in silver stands. 
There were times when rugs, soft silk and wool 
mosaics of color, brought from the East by caravan, 
thence on across the Black Sea, and on up the Dan¬ 
ube spread the floor. And here were blown glass 
vessels from Greece and feast tables with fringed 
covers, not bare like the trestles of the sturdier 
north. And a strange closed stove instead of the 
old open hearth below the smoke hole. And books! 

These last were the greatest mysteries of all to 
Thord—horn-backed volumes set with neat little 
monkish script on the parchment and with fascinat¬ 
ing tall crimson and gilt letters at the headings. To 
him it was strange that these little twists and whorls 
and galloping lines of ink scratched on paper could 
hold so much of meaning. True enough, he knew 
something of the old Runic writing of the North¬ 
land, mystic lines and crosses and squares that had 
their origin in the priestly lore of casting tiny sticks 
in the air and taking omens from the shape they 
fell in. Mostly the Rune writings that he knew 
were luck charms on amulets or on sword hilts, or 
carved stone lists of virtues of dead-and-gone chief¬ 
tains. But these books of the Southland, with their 
swift running hand-writing, held long, wondrous 
tales and histories and adventure. 

Of a night in the castle hall by the candlelight, 
Lady Alftruda or perhaps Herlindis, the Greek 
waiting woman from Constantinople, often read 



THRALLDOM 


69 


aloud to Roswitha and her attendants. The good 
Lady Alftruda, with an eye to the duchess’s train¬ 
ing, read for the most part from pious, dry-as-dust 
lives of the saints. Consequently, Thord, along 
with the rest of the listeners, rather welcomed the 
lively Greek woman’s turn. She had brought up 
the Danube from her own home city a great 
wooden-backed book with golden clasps and a 
golden lock and a tiny golden key that the waiting 
woman wore on a ribbon around her neck. When 
Herlindis unlocked her book it was to read wonder 
tales of Constantinople, queen city of the Cape of 
the Golden Horn, tales of the seven hills that over¬ 
look Asia, and marble palaces and great chain that 
bars the harbor port, Greek fire playing over the 
water, the procession of the Emperor, his blue¬ 
eyed Varangian guard—ola, all manner of tales 
that dazzled with their splendor! 

And the duchess, fired by so much of wonder, 
would fall to planning a pilgrimage down the Dan¬ 
ube to Sancta Sophia, Church of the Dome in the 
city of the Golden Horn. Thord Firetooth, full of 
longings, devoutly hoped that a castle huntsman 
would be a necessary adjunct on such a pilgrimage. 

Not all the nightly entertainment was reading, 
however. There were those of the duchess’s retinue 
who could tell as good stories as ever any that were 
ink-written on a book leaf. Kuolja, the queer little 
round-headed Lapp woman who had nursed Ros¬ 
witha through her babyhood, loved to spin yarns 
of the far icy land of the Nomad Laplanders that 
had been her home. Perhaps by as devious a route 




70 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


as Thord had traveled—pirates, capture, selling 
into bondage—had she, too, come to be a fixture at 
this great grim German castle? Be that as it may, 
the little old woman seemed comfortable enough 
now in the security of the duchess’s bounty and 
affection. She would live on the rest of her days 
among the Christian Teutons, bowing the knee to 
the book and the bell and the cross of the brown- 
cowled men; but in her heart she now and again 
journeyed in imagination to Lapland, that country 
famed for its sorcerers. 

“Prut,” would say Kuolja, shaking her round 
head in its funny knitted cap with blue beads sewed 
across its front for luck, “prut, what do you stolid 
folk know of real witch women and sorcerers! ” 

Then she would proceed with her favorite tales 
of Sunna, the fair-haired witch who could prophesy 
the weather with a raven’s feather blown in the air, 
or could set men singing poetry to her with a po¬ 
tion of that crimson magic dust pounded from the 
crimson toadstools. Sometimes old Kuolja would 
tell of Torne, the chieftain who kept a divining 
drum to help him locate strays from his reindeer 
herds. ’Twas just a common-looking drum, circlet 
of bone stretched with cover of deerskin, but at¬ 
tached by a cord was a tiny ring of silver, and on 
the face of the drum was drawn in magic ink of 
blood and soot, a map of the country. When Torne 
beat the drum with two silver-tipped sticks, the 
metal ring would slip and slide to the vibrations and 
finally settle on that portion of the map where 
Tome’s lost reindeer were to be found. Oh, the 



THRALLDOM 


71 


Lapps were great sorcerers—any one knew that! 

When Kuolja grew too complacent in extolling 
the ice country’s wonders, Master Boso, the cham¬ 
berlain, would send one of the pages out to bring 
into the castle hall Schwartz Jacob, the swine- 
herder, to uphold Alemanic prowess in the field of 
sorcery with his tales of the One-Eyed Man of the 
Hills, that ghost of the rocky peaks of Hohentweil. 
Schwartz Jacob, dressed in coarse felted frieze, 
bushy of hair and long of arm, cut a queer figure 
amid the soft candlelight and carved furnishings 
of the hall. But then, he was the only one of the 
castle folk who had so much as glimpsed the hill- 
man, and that gave him a distinction of a sort even 
among his betters. He was a great, deep-chested, 
broad-shouldered fellow who could crack a boar’s 
head at one blow, or with his bare hands bend an 
iron bar like a willow rod. Va—he was so strong 
that pious folk crossed themselves and whispered 
that perhaps he had done more than just glimpse 
the hillman, perhaps he had drunk beer with him 
in the dark of the moon and had been given the 
strength of two men. To such whispering Schwartz 
Jacob answered neither yea nor nay. It was no¬ 
body’s business where he got his strength. 

But the duchess had been good to Katrine, his 
wife, so for her sake Schwartz Jacob spun yarns 
aplenty; how, as he herded his black swine up 
among the crags of high forest where grew the 
little sweet acorns, he had come one day upon a 
great naked footprint hardened in the solid stone. 
And still another time, down in a far vale, he had 




72 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


found a curious stone formation like a huge arm¬ 
chair. Truly, these properties must have belonged 
to himself, the old One-eyed Man of the Hills, for 
none else was big enough to own them. There were 
those in higher circles who thought the shaggy one 
was likely enough the ghost of old Baron Conrad 
the One-Eyed, who losing nerve in battle, had 
turned and fled from the enemy and got a spear in 
the back for his cowardice. But in thrall hut and 
kitchen ’twas felt that the hillman was just plain 
devil, consequently the vale of the armchair and 
the crag of the rocky footprint were rather well 
avoided. 

Sometimes the Norse fellow was called upon to 
take his part in the story-telling with tales of far 
Jadar and Finnestrand on the north shores, and 
the bull hunts and stallion fights of the festivals. 
But though Thord took so glibly to books and 
yarns in the candlelight and many another soft ele¬ 
gance, it was the forest, the hunting, the good feel 
of spear to hand again that brought him real happi¬ 
ness. ’Twas almost like the old days of the free 
north to be out after wild boar and stag. 

The duchess’s table fared well under the regime 
of the new huntsman, who did indeed bend a strong 
bow and whose arrow seldom missed its mark. 
There were beaver from pond, haunch of venison, 
juicy bear ham, savories of grouse and partridge. 
In the early morning mists Thord even tried to 
stalk the rare capercailzie, giant wild fowl of the 
Alemanic forests. 

Down in the thrall huts behind the middens, there 



THRALLDOM 


73 


were those who watched Thord’s rise into compara¬ 
tive freedom with jealous eyes. 

“Umph! Why should this Nordic churl be set 
above other folks?” They’d show him a thing or 
two—the limping, over-handsome heathen! If he 
hadn’t run so fast, likely enough some of the rest 
of them would have got there in time to have pulled 
Her Highness out—would have got themselves 
transported to castle life and plenty to eat. A mur¬ 
rain on the fellow and his long legs! 

So were bred evil thoughts down in the dark¬ 
ness and misery of the mud huts. 

Tangible evidences of the smouldering envy of 
his former thrall mates were the occasional peltings 
of mud that descended upon Thord’s new raiment 
—black spattering shower, mocking laughter, run¬ 
ning footsteps—but Thord could never quite catch 
the offenders. Sometimes, too, filth mysteriously 
found its way into his trencher of stew or his drink¬ 
ing horn. 

These little malignances, the busy Thord thrust 
easily out of mind, all unaware of the insidious 
depth and strength of the jealous hatred that had 
bred them. 




Chapter VI 


--THROUGH THE FOREST - 

I N the late autumn days there came a messenger 
from the castle of neighboring nobility, sent 
to inquire if the duchess cared to journey to Ver- 
burg to the festival with Lord Urkhard, Count of 
Raventweil, and his men-at-arms. It was to be 
an excellent festival with banners and processions. 
A relic, the arm bone of St. Theopontus, richly set 
in gold and jewels, and very healing, was to be 
borne forth to work miracles. Also, what with 
masques and music and trade booths full of trin¬ 
kets— 

“La, ’tis wonderful kind of the noble count,” 
cried the duchess, all aglow with excitement. “We 
accept his offer; we will go.” 

“Nay,” burst out Lady Alftruda, anxiety making 
her pale face still paler. “At times of festivals and 
great crowds the lonely spots of the high road are 
oft menaced by robbers. ’Twere risky to go so far 
from our castle walls.” 

“The Lord Urkhard hath knights and armed 
men about him,” spoke up the messenger some¬ 
what stiffly. 

“Oh, Aunt Truda—the relic!” put in Roswitha. 

74 




THROUGH THE FOREST 


75 


“We may never again get a chance to touch or even 
see a sacred bone of a saint. Perchance ’twill 
cure the pains in your back and Thord’s limp. And 
there’s the town and the booths!” 

The good Lady Alftruda, sadly torn between her 
fears and her piety, could not bear to think upon 
her niece’s missing the great religious procession. 
And in the end it was the poor, long-gone St. Theo- 
pontus’s arm bone that finally won the day for 
those who were longing to go to the festival. 

The next dawning saw a little group of riders go 
forth from Castle Hegau’s massive walled court 
to join with the impressive cavalcade of the old 
Count of Raventweil. 

A full half day’s journey down into the valley lay 
the merchant city of Verburg, so it was past noon 
when the white-bearded Urkhard and the crimson- 
robed young duchess and their respective trains of 
retainers rode through the gates of the town. To 
Thord Firetooth this German city was all strange¬ 
ness. There was nothing like it in the Northland. 
Here were high-peaked wooden houses with over¬ 
hanging gables; cobble-paved streets; tradesmen’s 
booths opened right upon the thoroughfare with 
rich displays hanging within—jewels, laces, glitter 
of new armor. 

For the noble ladies of the party the landlord of 
Verburg Hostel, with much ado, finally arranged 
suitable quarters, but because of the crowds, the 
Firetooth, along with Chomu and Wovell, the horse 
boys, did well to secure straw shakedowns at the 
end of the great hall. After a supper of boar’s chine 



76 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


and brown bread, the castle huntsman sat long in 
his corner watching the gayety about him. At the 
high tables, away from the trestles of visitors of 
more common clay, the Count of Raventweil and 
his nobles lingered at their goblets of spiced red 
wine of Meersburg, which as any one knows will 
turn to liquid fire in a man’s brain. 

The day of processions came bright and clear. 
At an early hour the eager Roswitha had her Hegau 
retainers out on the streets where festivity held 
sway. Music resounded on every side. A group of 
olive-skinned bards from some Mediterranean coun¬ 
try played upon instruments such as the Norseman 
had never seen before—tambourines, double flutes, 
the nine-reed pipes of the syrinx. Jugglers did 
tumbling tricks. Hawkers called their wares, caged 
starlings that could whistle and also gibber a few 
words; seed cakes; honey cakes; complexion un¬ 
gents from far lands. Strange to say, for some of 
the latter Thord Fire tooth traded the sum total of 
his wallet—a moleskin and a bright stone flecked 
with gold. The Firetooth was securing this oint¬ 
ment as a gift for his friend Vaik the Magyar, 
whose yellow hide was something of a mortification 
to him now that he dwelt among such a blond race 
as the Teutons. 

Then down the street, with blare of oboes and 
chanting of priests, came the sacred procession— 
banners and pennons, gorgeously robed abbots on 
palfreys, after these marching monks. The latter 
held aloft many wondrous treasures from the mon¬ 
astery chests—silk embroidered pictures of scenes 



THROUGH THE FOREST 


77 


from Holy Writ, crosses and staves set with gold 
and jewels. In the center of all this splendor was 
carried a silver casket wherein reposed a dry, yel¬ 
lowed portion of bone set with gems and precious 
metal—the arm bone of the martyred Theopontus. 

“The saint! The saint! The bone of the mar¬ 
tyred one!” rose a great shout from all sides until 
a roar of voices filled the air like a thunder of 
waves upon the shore. Some knelt to pray. Some 
thrust forward, striving for a touch of the healing 
relic. 

“Oh, my aches, my pains, I must touch it!” 
wailed the Lady Alftruda, half smothered by the 
nigh frantic mob. 

Thord Firetooth lifted her to his strong shoul¬ 
ders. Other retainers so carried the duchess. Into 
the throng, and pressing after the procession, moved 
the Hegau cortege. 

All this religious fervor made its impress upon 
Thord Firetooth’s pagan heart. Thoughts seethed 
within him. In Norway there were many gods. 
These German people claimed but one God, then 
bowed the knee to bits of bone set in jewels. It was 
strange, puzzling. 

Memory turned back to Brihtnoth the Saxon, 
whom the pirates had done to death for his re¬ 
ligion’s sake. His bones were healing if any were. 
Thord wondered if some day they’d be set in jewels 
and knelt to. He tried to ask the Lady Alftruda 
about this, but press of the crowd was too great. 
There was time for naught but push and struggle. 
Then at last they were close and closer to the 



78 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


portable shrine with its trappings of velvet and sil¬ 
ver and its little mortal piece of him who had died 
for faith. 

The Lady Alftruda, high lifted on Thord’s shoul¬ 
der, was thrust forward; and for one fleeting mo¬ 
ment, for a mere catch of a breath or flick of an eye¬ 
lid, her hand touched the relic—then it was gone on. 

Lady Alftruda’s eyes were bright with excite¬ 
ment, her cheeks were flushed as any girl’s, and 
the ache was all gone out of her, she said. Faith 
in something had helped her. Thord wished for¬ 
lornly in his puzzled heart that he, too, had some 
god to pin his faith onto. The old gods of his fathers 
no longer satisfied him, and he could not seem to 
understand this Christian God who was meek and 
healing and had no fire and thunder about him. 
Thord longed for magnificence in his god. Well, 
perhaps someday he would find his god— 

His meditations were cut short by the turmoil 
of the crowded street. While most of the throng 
was still swarming after the relic and its accom¬ 
paniment of banner bearers and musicians, the 
Hegau party had turned about, and was striving 
to get out of the press, striving to head back in an¬ 
other direction. It had come to the Lady Alftruda’s 
mind that now was a good time for further religious 
pilgrimaging. Less than a mile beyond Verburg, at 
the Cloister of St. Radwig, was a spring reputed to 
have great healing in its waters. With haste, there 
would be time in plenty for a visit to this blessed 
spot before the hour set for home-going. 

Once free of the throng, and on a cobbled side 



THROUGH THE FOREST 


79 


street, it was a quick matter to reach the hostel, 
get the horses, and clatter on towards this new ob¬ 
jective. 

Thord found the Spring of St. Radwig a simple 
spot. A stone trough caught the trickle of a tiny 
stream that came from a rock crevice. Great pine 
trees rose around the place. A soft tinkling of 
cowbells echoed from beyond the slope. At a call 
from the visitors, an old monk in a faded robe 
emerged from a stone hut nearby and blessed the 
water as the Lady Alftruda and her maids caught 
little vials full to carry away with them. There was 
a peaceful quietude here that made one rather long 
to linger on a bit. 

Only there was no time for lingering, not if the 
duchess and her party were to make it back to 
Hegau Castle before darkness fell. So it was hasten 
on back toward the city! 

Even in the brief hour of their absence, Ver- 
burg had shed some of its holiday noise and fes¬ 
tivity. The priestly procession had departed for 
another town. Already, some of the street-hawkers 
and peddlers had packed up wares and followed 
after, to be on hand for sale-making at the next 
assembling of a crowd. 

When the Lady Alftruda, the duchess and their 
train rode up to Verburg Hostel, dismounted and 
entered, a bleak surprise awaited them. They had 
been deserted, left behind by that gentleman who 
had so gayly offered himself as their protector on 
the expedition. 

The Count of Raventweil, his strong guard, his 




80 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


bowmen, his pike-staff wielders—they had all de¬ 
parted full an hour ahead of the set time! 

“Well gone in his cups, and full of red wine, my 
lady/’ explained the innkeeper. “Methinks his 
lordship knew not what he was doing. Perchance 
you can overtake him. He departed, being held in 
the saddle, and not traveling over-fast.” 

“To horse, men and maids!” cried the quite dis¬ 
tracted Lady Alftruda. “In their numbers lies our 
protection! Forward! Forward!” 

Away galloped the duchess’s train of less than a 
score of men and serving women, speeding along 
the highway which led up from the valley toward 
home. 

Some hours later they were at the very begin¬ 
ning of that most dangerous part of the journey, 
the forest route whose tree-bordered path could 
hide any number of perils. In the distance before 
them appeared a great cavalcade hastening onward 
like themselves through these wilderness reaches. 

“The Count—the Raventweil party!” went up 
a glad shout, and the little band urged wearying 
horses into a faster gait. 

But haste brought only disappointment. Draw¬ 
ing nearer, it was seen that this was no train of a 
noble and his men-at-arms, but instead, a motley 
crew. Here traveled the peddlers, the mounte¬ 
banks, juggling folk and such who had teemed 
on the Verburg streets for the festival. Now they 
were journeying astride laden asses and rack-a- 
bone steeds on to the next merchant town, Ruen- 
staldt in the highlands. At a road which cut across 



THROUGH THE FOREST 


81 


the forest way this rabble turned off and went due 
west toward the city of the next festival. 

Thord Firetooth heaved a sigh of relief to be 
rid of such tag-end company of traveling compan¬ 
ions. He had kept a hand on his sword throughout 
the whole of the ride, for he liked not the craftily 
appraising gazes certain of the hard-faced rabble 
had cast upon the duchess’s and Lady Alftruda’s 
rich robes and fur-edged mantles. 

The steady upward climb of the rolling country 
was beginning to tell on the horses. There were 
no more spurts of galloping, merely a stolid plod¬ 
ding on and on. In the lengthening shadows 
Thord’s eyes noted here and there certain land¬ 
marks which stirred his remembrance—yon light¬ 
ning-blasted pine, that bald-faced crag with a little 
oak in its cleft. Ola, yes, he had come this way 
that day he and Bowman Brugg had chased a stag 
so far. This must be a shorter way back by which 
Master Boso, the chamberlain, was leading the 
party, and home could not be too distant now. 
Along with his remembrance, a little shiver ran up 
his spine. Just about here, old Brugg had told 
him, was a path that led into the One-Eyed Hill¬ 
man’s domain. He wondered if, perchance, the 
ghost of the cliffs would descend upon them, and 
he slid his hand to his dagger in its hip sheath— 
though, what good was mortal weapon against a 
ghost! 

But soon Thord Firetooth had need of weapons 
against visitants decidedly un-ghostly. 

For a second time on this lonely road came a 




82 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


thunder of hoof beats, but this time behind them, 
and a menacing sound that pursued nearer and 
nearer. Even the tired Hegau horses seemed to 
feel the danger and broke into a ponderous gal¬ 
loping. 

Another moment and through the dusk an ugly 
horde rode into view, some on rack-a-bone steeds 
and some on asses. J Twas a party of knaves from 
the peddling rabble, trekking back and descending 
like vultures to snatch easy pickings from this small 
body of travelers. Swirl of arrows told of their 
intentions as they dashed into view. 

The Hegau men staged a fighting retreat, striv¬ 
ing to hold off the vastly out-numbering attackers 
until the womenfolk could be hurried through the 
mountain gap and started down the valley for home. 
The less than half score of castle men, from be¬ 
hind a storm-felled tree, with their pikes and cross¬ 
bows, held off the marauders for a space. This 
stand lost, a great boulder served next as intrench- 
ment for the retreating ones and gave chance for 
Boso, the chamberlin to wind again the throw-cord 
of his powerful arblast, and for fresh arrows to be 
put to bow. 

Then, hard-pressed, they were fighting at the very 
pass itself and might have held that narrow defile 
had not a series of accidents occurred. Thord’s 
vicious, high-necked old nag, wounded to the death 
and rearing unmanageably, fell and half pinned 
Thord beneath him. Nor was this all; in the wild 
thrashings of the beast, Chomu’s spear and the bow 
of another were broken. This was the end for Thord. 



THROUGH THE FOREST 


83 


In the press of attack he could not be extricated. 
But he could die fighting. 

“Arrows, more arrows!” he cried. “Give them 
to me, and a spear also! Barricaded by the dead 
horse, I can hold the pass for a space. Go while 
I last—all of you!” 

But Boso stayed with him, as also did Otker 
Bowman. Three brave men to hold the defile against 
twoscore and more! The shades had begun to 
descend darkly now. To make their beleaguered 
selves seem more, Thord and his companions 
shouted and called and beat a sort of battle tune 
with dagger against sword hilt. They needed what 
courage their din might bestow upon them, for from 
behind every tree trunk seemed to fly arrow-death, 
and following this attack, the rabble swept up the 
gulch. 

Boso was dead. Otker Bowman had shot his last 
arrow. Only Thord, propped against his stiffened 
horse was left to pull a bow against death. Then 
suddenly behind him the brittle bush growth of the 
mountain side crackled sharply to some swift im¬ 
pact, and a great shaggy, lumpish creature flung 
itself with a heavy leap into the pass beside him. 
From a tube grasped in hand, the apparition hurled 
blue fire this way and that, a devilish, ghastly glow 
that stung and burned and lit the twilight in weird 
flashes. 

“Hillman! Ghost of the mountain!” Thus Thord 
thought he heard some of the Hegau women scream 
far down the mountain side. 

Ere he fainted there came to his ears clatter of 



84 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


the vagabond thieves in wild retreat from the spec¬ 
tral defender of the heights. Then his senses left 
him as a mighty grasp dragged him from beneath 
the dead black horse. 

When Thord next opened his eyes he was in a 
cave, lying upon a shelf of stone up against the 
wall. A sheepskin was beneath him, while another 
was thrown over him for cover. He could move one 
leg with difficulty, for it seemed bound about with 
crude splints. Memories of the fray pulsed through 
his brain. Something had fought beside him, res¬ 
cued him—what? With a shudder he remembered 
—the ghostly Hillman! 

“The Hillman—again!” Thord gasped weakly 
and covered his head with the sheepskin. He could 
be brave enough against mortal combatants, but 
the thought of being in a ghost’s power turned his 
very bones to water. 

The creature emitted a creaking, gargling sound, 
like the turning of a rusty hinge. 

“Ho, fellow, brave enough in battle, and now 
so cringing!” The one eye above him glittered 
balefully. “I like it not—for I cringed once my¬ 
self. When you were brave—I fought for you—” 

“W-what be you—man, or ghost?” quavered 
Thord. 

“Mostly ghost—or so men think me,” muttered 
the shaggy one. “That serves my purpose well, 
now that I’m a wolf-head and an outlaw and can 
never wear the purple pell of a baronetcy again. 
Enough of gabbing! Here, drink this.” And from 
a horn filled with a pungent, bitter herb juice Thord 




THROUGH THE FOREST 


85 


was drenched with a great vile dose like a sick 
horse in a stable. A sweet peacefulness stole over 
him again. 

Indeed, in the days and weeks that Thord stayed 
on in this strange cave he slept a great deal. Strength 
and healing came to his crushed leg through the rest 
and through various dosings of herbs applied to 
him within and without. In this interim he came to 
know that the old One-Eyed Man of the Hills was 
quite human and no ghost at all. In fact, he was 
none other than the outlawed Baron, One-Eyed 
Conrad, whom all people believed to have been 
killed in his disastrous flight and to have ever 
afterwards haunted the scene of his death. 

At nights, with a glow of fire between them, the 
wolf-robed old fellow told Thord much of those 
times when he was young and a power in the land. 

“Ah, me,” he of the one eye would sigh, “all 
is changed since the score and ten years gone when 
I lived as a man and not as an accursed ghost on 
a hilltop. Barons were kings in their own right 
then, and not mere puppets pulled on a string by 
any domineering emperor. 

“But this Otho—may the evil one ride his neck! 
—he must be emperor over everything. One by 
one he summoned the barons to his court and made 
them swear allegiance to him and give security for 
the promise. All who bent not the knee to him had 
their roofs burned over their heads. 

“Against me, the One-Eyed Baron who bowed 
the knee to none, he sent the imperial spears, but 
I met them with an army of my own, and mayhap 





86 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


would have won out had not some madness turned 
my brain and made me a coward, so that I fled and 
became a man with a price upon his head, a wolf to 
be hunted. Most men thought I died in battle that 
day, and the One-eyed let men think so. Better to 
be a ghost than a hunted craven to be shot down 
for a price,—better still had I died before the mad¬ 
ness struck me! Conrad the Coward —’tis an evil 
name.” 

So long the old outlaw sat sagging back in his 
hewn-out rock chair, shaggy head bent down in 
withered old hands, that Thord, to distract his 
benefactor’s mind from the gloom of the past, hob¬ 
bled around the fire and touched the other’s shoul¬ 
der. “Baron Conrad is skilled in the arts,” he 
ventured, breaking the silence. “He knows many 
healing herbs and can make blue fire in a tube—” 

“Prut!” burst out the old fellow, shaking his 
head from side to side with the lumbering motions 
of a great bear. “I live enough among the herbs 
to know something of them; and as for the fire 
tube,” his one eye gleamed excitedly, “that, indeed 
is an art little known this side of the Alps. In the 
days of my youth, when I was a free baron and 
as good as any king, I went down into Italy to fight 
and gain renown, as ever Germans have been doing 
since Charlemagne had the crown of Rome set 
upon his head. There the master flame maker, 
Raxedos, taught me much about the fire tube and 
the blue naphtha fire to be spouted upon the enemy 
and scatter them as with dragon’s breath.” 

“Blue fire—the blue Greek fire that plays over 





THROUGH THE FOREST 


87 


Constantinople harbor when their royalty enters 
port!” put in Thord. “I have heard the Greek 
waiting woman at the castle tell of it too!” 

“Um—yes, the wily Greeks! They would have 
us think they invented the fire tube, but methinks 
they merely borrowed it from another and older 
race. Tradition has it that men on the other 
side of the Asia continent were the first firework- 
makers. It matters little to Conrad where the thing 
was thought up. Whoever did it served him a good 
deed. A flash of blue fire in the dusk keeps these 
country folk well away from my den. And that 
suits the wolf-head.” 

Thord found in the wild free life of the moun¬ 
tain and the company of this strange old warlock 
a style of living that appealed to him. He would 
have liked well to stay on here through the winter 
in the cave of the crags. But after his leg healed, 
the Hillman, for reasons of his own, perhaps be¬ 
cause the habits of thirty years solitude were too 
strong to be broken, sent him back down the moun¬ 
tain side to civilization. 

“From my lookout in the cliffs,” he said, “I too 
often these days see men from the Hegau Castle 
nosing around my hunting grounds. They are seek¬ 
ing you, no doubt. Go back to the castle life. But 
before you go, make me two promises.” The old 
one reached out and took Thord’s hand in his 
crooked, knotted grasp. “Swear to me first, for it 
is the most important, that never will you turn from 
your danger, but will always face it. To turn 
the coward’s back is to lose more than life itself,” 




88 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


and a twitching shook the old hand. “Then prom¬ 
ise, for my sake, to tell none that I be human and 
no ghost, for my ghostliness is my protection.” 

And Thord promised and went away down the 
mountain side, little wotting what such promising 
could cost him. For long before he came in sight 
of the castle’s grim battlements he came upon a 
party of castle thralls, woodchopping under Bu 
the headman. 

With wild cries they fell upon him. 

“Ek—the runaway thrall! The consorter with 
ghosts! ” 

All the evil jealousy of the other serfs, from whose 
midst the duchess’s favor had in the near past 
lifted Thord to ease and castle elegancies, now 
flared forth in ugly fashion. Black Bu, whose au¬ 
thority in the matter of the Norse thrall the young 
duchess had so lightly set aside, joined his axe 
swingers in their taunts. 

Thord’s heart stood still at the threats in the 
voices about him. But he merely nodded his head 
in assent. To keep his promise to the Hillman he 
would have to admit that his friend of the fight 
was a ghostly visitant. 

“Donnergugi! May the thunder beetle bite me, 
if you’ll be bringing blue fire and black spells down 
the mountain to bewitch the rest of us with!” And 
stepping forward a space, the headman suddenly 
swung his wooden mallet and cracked Thord such 
a blow on the head that he fell in a heap. 

At night when the woodcutters returned to the 
castle one of the thralls carried to the steward, to 





The old one reached out and took Thord’s hand. 










THROUGH THE FOREST 


91 


be carried on in to the Duchess Roswitha, Thord’s 
leathern hauberk, well spattered with brownish, 
dried blood stains. Along with the coat went the 
message that the Norseman thrall most surely was 
dead. 

That the mistress of Hegau sincerely mourned 
the loss of the brave young huntsman was evinced 
by a great pile of rocks she had erected out in the 
castle garden in his memory, along with the stone 
piles raised to Boso and Bowman Otker, whose 
bodies had been found a month gone, back in the 
pass. 



Chapter VII 


-GHOSTS AT HEGAU-— 

ROUBLESOME times set in at Castle Hegau. 



X What with a ghost in the mountains, there also 
began to be ghosts in the very domicile itself! 

’Twas mostly out in the quarters of such servants 
as slept at the castle that the spirits walked. This 
was in the old section built in ages past, long be¬ 
fore the stones were laid for the present “baron’s 
hall,” which was set well to the fore of the turrets 
and over-topping roofs of the ancient hall. Here at 
the back was a great old round tower, or watch- 
bartizan, whose circular walls housed a score of 
chore boys and kitchen scullions and the like. The 
place, with its winding stairs in the very walls and 
slits of windows to let in weird lights and moaning 
of the doves in the upper reaches, was an uncanny 
enough habitation to begin with. And now, with 
tappings and whispering sighs that could not en¬ 
tirely be the wind, it was fair distressing as a place 
of abode. 

During this period Vaik, the slant-eyed kitchen 
helper, went decidedly off his feed. His straw pal¬ 
let was on one of the lower floors of the tower, 
and he got full benefit of this new and ghostly 
visitant at the castle. 


92 




GHOSTS AT HEGAU 


93 


“But tell me/’ he asked of the fat cook, who had 
a room elsewhere in the great rambling domain 
and was not greatly concerned over the ghost tales 
of the younger fry, “what lies beneath the floor 
where I sleep?’’ 

“Only the old dungeon,” answered Gretchen, 
neatly trussing two fowls upon the spit and hand¬ 
ing them to her assistant to hold above the coals 
and roast to a turn. “Mind you now,” said 
Gretchen, “you baste them well with the vinegar 
and butter gravy and see to it also that you nibble 
not off a wing and eat it raw, as I’ve caught you 
doing I” 

Gretchen emphasized her orders with a knuckle 
thump on the other’s shock head, though, forsooth, 
it was more a playful tap than anything else, for 
she was rather fond of this Vaik. 

“A dungeon! ” quavered Vaik. “Then perchance, 
’tis the prisoners I hear rattling their chains and 
wall tapping of a night, instead of ghosts?” 

“Ho hum, not so,” sighed Gretchen. “Those 
good old days are long past now when the castle 
lords used to run in the fat merchants in fur coats 
and flat caps and bales of goods from the packs and 
let them cool their heels in a dungeon cell until an 
envoy from the burgomaster of the merchant’s town 
would come with a long purse to pay the ransom. 
’Twas rich living then. But this Emperor Otho 
seems to side with the silly burghers and he gives 
them protection. What’s more, he keeps the barons 
so busy fighting his imperial enemies that they have 
small time to think of aught else. Our own lord 




94 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


baron has been gone from home for nigh a twelve- 
month.” 

“And so the dungeon is empty of humans—illah 
ya; then it must be ghosts that thump beneath 
me!” and Vaik near dropped the chickens, spit and 
all, in the trembles that seized him. 

“Go to, thou chump!” snorted the cook, shaking 
him roundly. “But burn up those fat fowls, and I’ll 
be making a ghost of you! ’Tis naught but rats in 
the hole beneath you. And see to it that none of 
your foolish fears be peddled up to the duchess’s 
ears. Our lady is grieved enough now, what with 
three good men lost in that jaunt to the festival 
town! Just wait till our baron comes home, and he’ll 
make old Count Urkhard’s ears smart for falling 
in his cups and forgetting to escort our lady home.” 

Vaik tried to think as he was bid, but the ghostly 
tappings still pursued him, even though he moved 
his pallet to a higher floor and crowded himself 
in with the other occupants hereon. The sounds 
were fainter, but Vaik’s keen ears could not fail 
of hearing them. 

“Thump, thump,—thump-thump-thump! ” 

There was a ghastly rhythm to the bumping, and 
suddenly it came to the Magyar’s mind that this 
staccato beat was the measure Thord used to beat 
with a stick upon a hollow tree, keeping time to 
Vaik’s fluting on a length of reed. That had been 
back in the time of their plowhand days. 

Faintly, it came again: “Thump, thump,— 
thump-thump-thump! ” 

Vaik’s shaggy thatch fairly stood up on his head, 
and his tallowy face went a shade paler. That was 



GHOSTS AT HEGAU 


95 


Thord’s ghost! Ek-a! Cook or no cook, the 
duchess must be told. 

One day when his courage was screwed to stick¬ 
ing point, the homely, big-eared Vaik, as he served 
the platters of pastry and beans and brown sausages 
to the duchess’s own table, dared paused for a scared 
moment by the high-seat and whisper: “Thord’s 
ghost—in the dungeon—let it out!” 

Then in his excitement he let fall all the sausages. 

But Roswitha was too stirred by his whispered 
communication even to reprimand him. She leaped 
to her feet. “How, now, shall it be done? What 
say you?” 

“Oh, my lady, I have a plan.” In his fervor Vaik 
forgot to be frightened. “Out in the land where I 
was born, when a ghost walked some one took a 
lock of the dead man’s hair or a shred of his gar¬ 
ment or something that had been upon him, and 
placed this thing in a crevice in a rock. It was then 
pegged in stoutly and incantations said upon it. 
After that the ghost walked no more, unless, per¬ 
chance, a lightning blast or an earthquake wracked 
the rock asunder and let the spirit out again. Now 
then, take Thord’s coat brought in by the woodsmen, 
a shred of it—” 

“Nay,” spoke up Lady Alftruda firmly, “that 
would be heathen doings. We will send for Father 
Ambrose to sprinkle holy oil and lay this ghost in 
a seemly fashion.” 

So forthwith a messenger was posted off to the 
Monastery of St. Ortfried to bring Father Ambrose 
in haste. The fat monk came rather reluctantly. 



96 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


Laying ghosts in Lord Herrich’s dungeon was not 
altogether to his liking. But the Baron of Hegau 
being a patron of the monastery, he could in no 
way refuse the call. 

It was a solemn procession that wended its way 
back to this ancient part of the building and en¬ 
tered into the base of the old bartizan tower. After 
the opening of the heavy oaken door that creaked 
and grated horribly on its rusty hinges, fat Father 
Ambrose with his oil and Lady Alftruda bearing 
a lighted candle marched in. Behind them came 
Roswitha and Vaik and old Kuolja with the Lap- 
land luck beads on her cap all a-jingle with ex¬ 
citement. At a more discreet distance the gardener, 
the cook and some of the houseboys straggled. 

As the footsteps went down and down to the dun¬ 
geons, answering sounds arose—faint piping squeak- 
ings, a rustling and a pattering. 

“The ghost!” cried some in awed whispers. 

But these were only rats, great silvery fellows 
with little glaring eyes. They dashed off in all 
directions. 

After this hasty exodus of rodents came a breath¬ 
less silence. The little procession stumbled on 
through a mass of discarded truck that cumbered 
the first floor underground—ancient bits of cloth 
and sacking and leather, rusting helmets, broken 
spears, cracked earthernware and kitchen odds and 
ends. 

Then suddenly as they were in the midst of this 
ancient lumber, the dreaded sound came to ear, 
from the floor beneath them or out of the solid 




GHOSTS AT HEGAU 


97 


walls around them—illah, who could tell from 
whence? 

“Thump, thump,—thump-thump-thump! ” 

No one spoke. Lady Alftruda’s hand shook till 
the candle nigh fell out of it. The monk and Vaik 
and Roswitha stood frozen. 

Again: “Thump, thump,—thump - thump - 

thump!” 

“ ’Tis under us—the trapdoor must be opened,” 
whispered the Lady Alftruda. Then raising her 
voice and staying its trembling somewhat, she com¬ 
manded stout Rolf, the gardener, to help Vaik 
lift the door. 

But Rolf had long since departed up to air and 
daylight, muttering to himself that it ill suited his 
nerves to be hounding out such spirits as thumped 
the foot-stones by night. Next they’d be twisting 
one’s neck with a hand not seen. 

So fat Father Ambrose showed himself to be a 
man of valor. Girding his robes, he pulled up the 
great door by his lone strength. 

Out through the opening came a rush of foul air, 
clank of a chain dragged, a weird moaning from 
the darkness. 

“The ghost—it walks! ” shrieked the women. 

“Lay it quickly, Father,” muttered the weazened 
Vaik, helping the holy man find again the oil 
vessel set aside in the shadows. 

“Media vita in morte sumus!” chanted Father 
Ambrose, lifting the holy vessel high. “Quern 
quaerimus —” But his pious Latin hymn was never 
finished. 



98 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


Out of the black hole below rose calls decidedly 
human: “The duchess! Vaik! Help! It is I— 
Thord, in the dungeon in chains. Get me out, or I 
die!” 

More candles were brought. Down the iron lad¬ 
der into the black dungeon went the monk and 
brought up in his stout arms a poor, weak Thord, 
with a festering welt across his brow and a ball 
and chain about his legs. 

He had lost all count of the long days he had 
been in the dark keep, subsisting on such bread and 
water as Black Bu thrust in for him occasionally. 
£>lack Bu had put him here—for what, he knew 
not. 

Black Bu, hastily summoned from his forest 
woodcutting to appear before the duchess’s high- 
seat, defended himself stoutly for his action: “The 
Norse churl, besides other heathenish ways, has 
spent much time with the ghostly One-Eyed Man 
of the Hills. He’ll be bewitching us all for fair, if 
folks don’t look out,” and he emphasized his words 
with a fist shaken in the direction of the late pris¬ 
oner of the dungeon. “I did but shut the fellow 
in the lock-up to keep him safe till our Lord Her- 
rich’s return. Va—question him yourself about 
ghosts and such, and see what answer he’ll make,” 
ended the headman. “See how he’ll admit he’s been 
in league with devils and the fire-spouting ghost.” 

Thord was too weak and sick to drop on his 
knees, but he reached out a feeble hand and touched 
the lady’s garment pleadingly. “Because of a vow, 
I can answer neither yea nor nay to Black Bu. 



GHOSTS AT HEGAU 


99 


But no harm have I done to Hegau property, and 
no harm will I ever do to it.” 

Duchess Roswitha found cases of witchcraft and 
ghostliness too difficult a knot for her young mind 
to unravel, so she wisely dismissed the whole af¬ 
fair with a wave of her small hand. “Our hunts¬ 
man hath twice risked his life to save mine, so my 
judgment is to set him free and reward his courage, 
and let matters rest thus till our lord, the baron, 
returns.” 

“So be it,” muttered Black Bu to himself, de¬ 
parting to his work of overseeing the thrall labor, 
“but when Lord Her rich Iron-Arm returns there’ll 
be many a one that’ll sing a tune out of a different 
side of his mouth.” 

With proper care Thord’s crack across the head 
healed up nicely. The good nourishing stews that 
Vaik and the fat Gretchen concoted for the late 
ghost soon brought him from his bag-of-bones state 
back into his natural vigor. 

In Hegau affairs dropped once more into their 
normal routine. Time passed by monotonously. 
Christmas was upon the castle almost before one 
knew it. The week before the festival was a fever¬ 
ish one, with everybody dodging the other. The 
Lady Roswitha and her maids went about doing 
much embroidery in gold thread and silks and hid¬ 
ing things in their work-baskets at each other’s 
approach. 

Down in the kitchen was a mighty bustle. The 
grinning Vaik and the whole apartment in general 
smelt of cardamon and spice. Even Thord Fire- 



100 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


tooth was making preparations for Christmas, 
though much his pagan self knew about the occa¬ 
sion! Every dawning now saw him out in the dim 
cold fastness of the forest, waiting beneath a cer¬ 
tain roost tree, a stone image for stillness, ready 
bowstring pulled taut to ear. Ohime, but he would 
get that capercailzie! What a mighty Christmas pie 
the huge bird would make! 

On Christmas morning the long procession of all 
the castle folk marched down the frosty road to the 
Church of St. Ortfried. And here, what with the 
dark green of fir wreath and gleaming candles and 
robed priests and chanting of the story of the Christ 
birth, Thord of the North Country felt something 
stir at his heart. He knew not what it was, but 
never again would he be quite his old pagan self. 

Back at the castle the rest of the day went gayly, 
with gift giving and a visitation of masked mum¬ 
mers from the village, comic, clumsy figures in bear¬ 
skin and wolf hide and painted wooden masks. One 
shaggy fellow made weird music on a cow horn hung 
by leather cord round his neck, while his fellows 
danced and swayed and brought the castle folk 
almost to tears of merriment by their antics. 

Last of all came the Christmas feast, a feast 
beneath which the boards groaned. Savory was 
the dining hall with fried pilchard and hake, 
browned grouse and pheasant, roasts of venison, 
white bread, wine, cakes baked in star shapes and 
set with nuts, and crown of the feast, a mighty 
Christmas pie that took four men to lift to the 
table—a royal pie built up of layers of apples, 



GHOSTS AT HEGAU 


101 


bacon, onions, and mutton, and at the bottom 
Thord’s capercailzie, larger than a sheep and with 
a six-foot stretch of wings. Ah, it was a marvel of 
a pie, and the air was fragrant with the mixed odors 
of its ingredients! 

And in the midst of the Christmas feasting, Lord 
Herrich Iron-Arm and his fighting men came home. 
The great hall was all a-clash with shields and 
armor and drinking and bales of plunder. For the 
fair Roswitha her doughty father had brought a 
strange Christmas gift—a jewel casket he called 
it. ’Twas a box of silver lined with crimson velvet 
and decorated without in queer carved figures of 
the Savior and Saint Peter and Saint Paul—a relic- 
holder from some looted monastery. To Lord Her¬ 
rich Iron-Arm, his emperor’s enemies were his also 
—the more so, if there were any rich pickings to 
be had from rebellious bishop or monks in far- 
off Saxony. Quite to his liking had been the chance 
of a raid brought on by the late unpleasantness be¬ 
tween the rich monks of Craylo and the king, where¬ 
in they had refused to pay additional taxes to the 
crown. Aoi! In the ashes of their monastery, Lord 
Iron-Arm had taught them a lesson in tax pay¬ 
ing. 

The Lord Herrich’s return brought on many a 
change at Castle Hegau. With the next morning, 
as he strode out to oversee his possessions, there 
came to his ears from the thrall quarters dark, en¬ 
vious hints against Thord—whisperings that the 
pagan from the north had indulged in heathen 
abominations at Hegau! 




102 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


That slab of rock beneath the oak up yonder 
was the Odin altar. Assuredly, they had seen it 
with their own eyes in the early dawn light. And 
the slant-eyed Magyar had been at it too. Small 
wonder the land had been cursed—with such go¬ 
ings-on! These pagan wretches—no doubt of it at 
all—had brought down hail on the fall barley. 
There was the pigsty, too, lightning blasted and 
six fattening hogs dead in it. Kept on here, these 
two heathens would likely enough cast further spells, 
murrain the cattle, lame the geese, bring chalk 
stones on one’s fingers. The Norse one had run 
with the Hillman too. Best be off with the scoun¬ 
drels, beat ’em and hang ’em. 

And so, because of jealousy and because of the 
strange combination of devil worship and spirit 
fear that went hand in hand with the superstitious 
Christianity of the old Alemanic Teuton, Thord 
Firetooth and the Magyar were dragged out of 
their respective pallets, hustled down to the night- 
shrouded lake shore, and beaten half to death. 
Lord Iron-Arm would teach thralls to make spells 
against his crops and cattle! To old Bu and two 
serving men was left the task of stringing the poor 
wretches up to a tree. 

But sometimes cupidity is stronger even than 
devil fear. Black Bu had an itching palm and loved 
a little trade on the side which would line his own 
pockets. So it happened that Thord and Vaik and 
a good length of hemp rope round the neck of each, 
were turned over to some Danube boatmen up in 
the lake country who were scouting for cheap labor 




GHOSTS AT HEGAU 


103 


to set at the oarlocks, and Black Bu in the trade 
got his pockets the heavier by a golden thaler, two 
Greek denarii, and a handful of brasses. The mas¬ 
ter had told him to get rid of the pests—um—well, 
he’d gotten rid of ’em, hadn’t he? And Black Bu 
pleasantly jingled his brass and gold as he strode 
home through the night. 

It would seem that the old Norse Nornir knew 
well their business of fating human lives. Had not 
Thord Firetooth drawn the golden boat out of the 
omen jar in sign that he’d travel far waters? 

And was he not now traveling far waters? The 
power of the golden boat continued. In the course 
of events Thord was on the Danube, broad water 
road of his dreams, bound for the wondrous jewel 
of the Black Sea, Constantinople, city of the Golden 
Horn. 

But ai, what a twist life did give to fate! Thord 
was traveling, but ’twas no golden life on a golden 
boat. Life of an oar thrall on the oar-bench of a 
clumsy-bowed merchant galley was a life reeking 
with sweat and misery. 





Chapter VIII 


DOWN THE DANUBE --— 

H OI! Ya, woe!” monotonously chanted the 
oarsmen of the squat, dingy merchant gal¬ 
ley. Two men to a pole, they bent weary backs 
to the rowing. 

At one of the sixteen-foot row poles labored a 
queerly assorted pair, a weazened Magyar and a 
tall Norseman whose native fairness had weathered 
into tawny gold. 

“Hist you, Thord,” whispered the Magyar. 
“Canst swing the oar alone for a space while I 
untie a knot in my wind cord?” 

Thord merely nodded, to conserve breath, and 
bent nearly double under strain of the oar’s sweep. 

Furtively the other drew from beneath his ragged 
tunic a thin strip of wolf hide knotted fantastically. 
It was that awesome thing, “a wind cord,” a bit 
of leather string which had been tied in many knots 
and boiled in oil under the weird conjuring of some 
old sorcerer of the Magyar steppes. The Magyar 
oarsman firmly believed that a gale lay behind the 
untying of those potent knots. “Shall Vaik loose 
one knot or five knots—a breeze or a storm?” he 
whispered to his oar mate. 

104 




DOWN THE DANUBE 


105 


“Loose the whole accursed string of them,” 
panted the Norseman. “Anything to fill this black 
hulk’s sail with wind and save my arms a space of 
pulling.” 

But Vaik’s dabbling in witchcraft came to an 
untimely end as a six-lashed whip descended venge- 
fully across his and Thord’s backs. 

“Up with you! Swing the oar in unison, you 
laggards. Dost think Zartel the merchant bought 
you for to loiter?” As Sla, the galley master, passed 
on down the deck planking between crouched rows 
of human beings, his whip lashed action out of 
fatigue and hopelessness, and the boat shot for¬ 
ward amazingly. Somewhere behind it, in the foam 
of the wake, the Magyar wind cord, lost overboard, 
drifted on, its storm knots still safely tied. 

Doggedly the two swayed and bent to their oar, 
and cast resentful eyes up at the heavens where 
the utter stillness of cloud and air seemed to hold 
no promise of a relieving wind, though, in this 
strange southern land they were coming into there 
was no depending on all known wind signs. Storms 
could shatter calm in the drawing of a breath. 

For months now they had been coming down the 
Danube. A weary enough journey, which to the 
two thralls seemed to encompass a whole lifetime 
of misery and hardship. Existence held nothing 
beyond labor at the oars and brief spaces for snatch¬ 
ing at food and the sodden sleep of exhaustion. 
For fear of river pirates or attack from various 
barbarian tribes along the watercourse, the mer¬ 
chant Zartel’s little fleet of six galleys carried armed 



106 


THORD FIRETODTH 


guards and fairly bristled with axes and javelins. 
So always, rowing or resting, the oar thralls were 
under a surveillance from which there was small 
chance of escape. 

Back in the Suabian lake country, where a trib¬ 
utary of the Danube wound between the hills, this 
long boat journey had begun. Preceding the start 
down river, there had been held Zartel’s fair. This 
was as far up as the trader’s crafts could go. So 
on a broad Suabian meadow he had spread out his 
wares in tents. And here from miles around, the 
country folk had congregated to bargain with this 
suave, smooth-talking, black-bearded merchant 
from Constantinople. 

A sort of glamour clung about his chests of wares 
brought two thousand miles from the lands of the 
sunrise, up through half the nations of Europe, 
into Germany. There were burnished bronze mir¬ 
rors from cities of northern Africa, finest glass beads 
from across the Black Sea, Greek-made trinkets of 
delicate filagree, soft woven stuffs from India, fibu¬ 
las and finger rings set with charm stones. 

Bartering was brisk. These solid Germanic peo¬ 
ples craved the dazzle and romance of the things 
from afar. When at last the foreign merchant had 
folded his tents, he took his fleet of prams down 
the river laden to the oar-tholes with wares re¬ 
ceived in barter. 

From here had begun Thord Fire tooth’s life as 
an oar slave. Among Zartel’s hundred and twenty 
galley-thralls that manned his trade boats were sons 
of many nations, prisoners of many wars and tribal 



DOWN THE DANUBE 


107 


strifes, bought at the auction block by the canny 
trader because of their brawn and endurance. On 
the bench before Thord rowed two Britons, behind 
him a Scythian and a Gaul. Here some Greek 
convicts; there flame-haired savages from Hiber¬ 
nia. Many of the slaves had made numerous trips 
up and down the Danube. What tales they could 
have told Thord Firetooth of the far lands his in¬ 
satiable curiosity was forever craving to hear about! 
Only talk was forbidden among the galley slaves. 
A hurried whisper, muffled tattoo of a knuckle 
thumping the boat edge in a crude code—“The 
master sleeps” or “The whip is coming”—these 
had constituted Thord’s contacts with his fellow 
men during the long months down the Danube. 

But his eyes had been his own, and with them he 
had seen much. Out of that small tributary river 
the great, winding old Danube had caught up the 
little fleet. And here on the vast ancient highway 
of antiquity there was much of navigation, many 
kinds of craft to be seen, divers races of people, a 
traffic incomparable to any other waterway of the 
period. Not a day came but one met a vessel toiling 
up stream or, because of the swift driven oars of 
Zartel’s slaves, one passed other vessels on the way 
down. To Thord Firetooth it seemed that the 
whole world was scraping sides with them. The 
trade fleet followed the river past mountains and 
cities. Past the Hills of Buda, where sat the wild 
bloody city of the Huns, and on past marsh and 
lake where primitive folk still dwelled in stilt¬ 
legged huts set high above the water. They drew 




108 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


in their bridge-like approaches when any sort of 
craft went by. 

With fifteen hundred miles of river behind him, 
Thord had had chance aplenty to glimpse the Mag¬ 
yar tribes, sometimes tent encampments set away 
on the hills, sometimes skin-coated herdsmen driv¬ 
ing their animals close along the river bank. Not 
an hour gone a rabble of Magyar riders on wiry 
little ponies had forded the stream and raced their 
snorting steeds up the bank just as the boats 
swerved around a river bend. This was Vaik’s home¬ 
land, the thousand-mile pasture land of Vaik’s no¬ 
madic tribesmen. Ah-illah! If only the little Hun 
could make some sign to his wild kin of the plains! 
Might he not start them on a raid or a rescue? 

Thord stole a sidewise glance at his oar mate. 
The Magyar’s face was working, his slant eyes 
ablaze with excitement. Thord’s heart leaped. Ya! 
Vaik looked as though he had seen something, was 
planning something. 

But if Vaik had a plan, Thord was never to 
know it. A muffled insistent tapping broke his 
train of thought, dragged him back to his ever¬ 
present misery. “Row! Row! Beware the whip!” 
came a sudden thumped message relayed nervously 
down the boat sides. 

The oar thralls bent swiftly to their labors. But 
not swift enough, it seemed. All down the line 
sounded a brutal thwacking of ash rod to back. 
Thord got a slanting blow across head and shoul¬ 
ders. 

“Hoi! Hoi!” bellowed Sla. “Haste, you dogs! 



DOWN THE DANUBE 


109 


What with a storm bearing down upon us and pi¬ 
rates like enough lurking along these cliff caves, 
we must make it on to Strague by night!” 

“Umph!” thought Thord. “Vaik’s wind cord 
seems to have loosened something upon us, but 
wurra, ’tis a thrall’s luck—the wind is against us.” 

Strain and pull, strain and pull, forcing the 
clumsy flatboats straight into the teeth of the gale. 
From the after end of the boat, where sat the beater, 
keeping time for the oars as he thumped with a 
gavel upon hollow wood, came a swift cadence 
that drove arm and lung mercilessly in its urge. 

“Faster, faster!” screamed Sla, the driver, add¬ 
ing his whip lash to the gavel’s demand for speed, 
speed. 

Fear was in those cries. Was it pursuit, attack 
that was driving the trade galleys swift and swifter 
into the gale? 

Roped to his bench, Thord could see nothing, 
hear nothing save the whirl and roar of the tem¬ 
pest into which they were rushing. Then, as he 
breathlessly bent and dipped, he glimpsed a slen¬ 
der, rakish craft speeding through the rain storm, 
now alongside, now on past, beating down into the 
gale with swifter oars. Another and another sped 
past, a whole fleet, more than one could count in 
this nightmare of blows and driven labor that was 
bursting one’s heart out. 

Thord wondered dully what it all meant as his 
muscles strained and knotted in agony. 

Then came strange, incoherent commands, “Turn 
—turn—upstream!” 



110 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


More blows, more straining, as the unwieldly 
craft backed and turned feebly against the cur¬ 
rent, moved by the mechanism of over-taxed human 
arms. 

Suddenly upon the laboring boat, as she hung 
helpless, broadside to the stream, descended one of 
the swift dark galleys, rushing up river, sail set, 
speeding like a bird before the gale, and with all 
oars moving. Out-tumulting the shrieks of men in 
terror, rose the grind and crash of collision, as the 
bronze-beaked robber ship rode afoul of the mer¬ 
chantman, tearing whole quivering timbers asun¬ 
der. 

Roped to his bench and to his oar mate, Thord 
suffered the quick horror of a wild hurling skyward 
as the doomed vessel burst apart in the over-riding. 
Then came a sensation of water, drowning, oblivion. 
Back to the surface he and his half-unconscious 
mate surged, bobbed about for a dreadful moment 
amid crash of river battle, other ships ridden down, 
peals of fright, crews drowning in vortexes. 

Then came a second sinking and a second ris¬ 
ing with its gasping return to air more painful even 
than drowning. Wind and storm dashed the sod¬ 
den prisoners of the galley plank against the river 
cliff. A wild swirl of water caught them up on a 
dizzy whirl, sucked them under, battered them 
cruelly against rough walls of a basalt tunnel, 
then shot its victims forward into the shallow waters 
of a cave beneath the cliffs. 

Thord, more sturdy than his comrade, came 



DOWN THE DANUBE 


111 


first to his senses. He found himself flat on his 
back, nostrils just above the shallow water of the 
cave, his whole body swaying to the outward suck 
of this strange current. 

As strength returned he frayed his rope bonds 
asunder on a rock. A ray of light filtered down 
from somewhere. By its faint gleam he frantically 
set about reviving the battered Vaik. Thord rolled 
him across a water-rounded boulder, pumped his 
arms, forcing air into his lungs, hugged him close, 
and watched his eyes open slowly. For long the 
two sat side by side, close and chilly, and in a state 
of numbed exhaustion. From the outside, beyond 
the walls of their strange water-locked refuge, there 
drifted in faint echo of the still raging battle, war 
crash and howl and dying shriek queerly muted as 
though coming from another world. 

Once a broken oar was sucked into their tunnel. 
It drifted close to their feet, like a message from 
the world they had left. Then after a space it floated 
back out again. With its going all bond to the outer 
existence seemed severed. In the weird sense of 
unreality that hung about these two prisoners of the 
cliff, it seemed to them that their past life was 
obscured, that the Danube, the voyage, the horror 
of slaving at the oar, were things that never had 
been. Only the cave, the sodden damp, the sullen 
suck of water at their feet—only these were real. 

Gradually the dim ray of light from above faded. 
Darkness descended upon the cave. Silences of the 
night without swallowed up all sound. Battle, plun- 



112 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


dering pirates, storm—it was as though these things 
too, had never been. 

By some quirk of the mind Thord was dreaming 
that he was swimming in Nord Fjord—the cold 
sea water beside his old home—that Thora was with 
him, her arms about him. They were going down, 
down, down; water was closing over them. 

With a snort of dismay the Norseman awoke, 
struggled to sit up, found that he and Vaik, clutched 
in each other’s arms, had in their sleep rolled off 
the slab of rock into the shallow water of the sloping 
cave bottom. 

It was daylight again, as the filter of light above 
their heads testified. Thord with difficulty got to 
his feet, stretched—ow-ee! But any movement 
hurt! Tenderly he felt his body with his hands to 
see if any bones were broken. He seemed whole, 
just merely a mass of aches and bruises from the 
cruel buffetings of storm water and cliff. Cautiously 
he began a tour of inspection around his cave 
prison. It seemed a spacious place, with several 
tunnels of eroded limestone leading back in vari¬ 
ous directions. Suddenly as he crept about the walls 
a more brilliant ray of sunlight bursting through 
the crevice above illuminated an awesome sight 
there in the limestone before him. It was as though 
he were sunken in the center of an ancient cemetery 
—an animal cemetery. Fossilized into the rocky 
shale about him, empty sockets gazed balefully out 
at him; here were skulls of pig-like monsters, cara¬ 
paces of turtles unlike any turtles living, shin bone 
of giant rhinoceros that no longer roams the upper 




DOWN THE DANUBE 


113 


jungle. With a scream Thord fell on his face before 
these gruesome souvenirs of a vanished age. He 
had a feeling of one dead and gone to another world. 
In answer to his cry Vaik came stumbling back to 
him and fell down too before these envaulted bones. 

For long they lay, all the natural heathenish in¬ 
stincts of their minds aroused in abject terror. In 
what manner of place were they? What witch¬ 
craft dwelled in those hideous fanged skulls? 

But as time passed and nothing happened, no 
curse of mind or body fell upon them, the two 
scrambled to their feet and backed away from the 
place. 

Then Vaik, his bright, slant eyes becoming accus¬ 
tomed to the cavern light, broke forth into a scream 
—a scream of delight. 

“The cat—the sign of the cat god!” he cried, 
rushing forward to a portion of the wall scored with 
crude drawings. 

“Cat god—what?” Thord, all in a tremble, 
pressed close beside his companion. This strange 
cavern’s sights were fraying his nerves. 

“ ’Tis the sign of Kutka, the god of the Huns. 
Know you not how in the long ago, when my an¬ 
cestors, the Huns, scourged Byzantium and held 
Europe to tribute, the King Attila in a vision be¬ 
held Kutka in his tent in the form of a cat playing 
with a golden ball? The vision told him that so 
would he, King of the Huns, play with the round 
world. And the cat became thereafter the king’s 
banner sign.” Reverently the Magyar knelt to this 
strange symbol of royalty. Then gently he touched 



114 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


a finger to the crudely scratched figure. “To think,” 
he whispered, “that Attila, the great king himself, 
has been in this cave, has stood where we stand!” 

To Thord’s mind, the grotesque feline scratched 
on the wall was part and parcel with skulls and 
bones and other monstrosities of the cavern. The 
pantheon of hardy Norse deities held no such creep¬ 
ing creature as the cat for worship. However, the 
mere thought that human hands had cut the sym¬ 
bol on the wall, that human feet, even in the long 
ago, had trod this gruesome place, sent comfort 
to his chilled heart. 

He drew closer to view this thing which had so 
touched Vaik. And then, because his eye was en¬ 
tirely undimmed by any emotion, he saw something 
that the other had entirely overlooked—a glint 
and glitter in a crevice beside the cat sign. Reach¬ 
ing up a hand, Thord scraped out of the crack and 
onto the damp stone at their feet, a mass of golden 
rings, glittering jewels, crosses of many a rifled 
bishop, necklaces snatched from high-born Rome 
and learned Athens, coins from the civilized coffers 
of the world. 

“Attila’s treasure! Lost treasure of the king!” 
gasped the awed Vaik, crouching beside the scin¬ 
tillating pile. “Riches beyond dreams!” 

With vast cunning these two, but so recently 
slaves at an oar pole, disposed about their persons 
the more portable portions of their find. Beneath 
tattered leather tunics, little rags knotted full of 
gold and diamonds and rubies, and tied to a belt 



DOWN THE DANUBE 


115 


cord about the waist, rubbed unctuously against 
lean bodies. 

Laden with as much as they could comfortably 
stir under, they stored the remainder of the treas¬ 
ure back in the crevice beside the cat sign of At- 
tila, King of the Huns. Since he had so well sat 
guard over the jewels, Thord now regarded the cat 
in a much more friendly fashion. 

With full purses, but empty stomachs, the two 
prisoners of the cave put their heads together to 
plan a way out of their cliff dungeon. Besides the 
treasure cache and the crude picture scratched be¬ 
side it, they found other evidences of human occu¬ 
pation, a sort of seat hewn out of the rock, ashes, 
charred bones, and other signs of a hearth and cook¬ 
ing further back in the cave. If in the old days men 
had come and gone from the cavern, there must be, 
besides the dreadful, water-filled tunnel, a way out 
now. There was need of haste, too, for it was all of 
twenty-four hours since they had eaten, and hunger 
was gnawing most unpleasantly. 

The crevice through which light filtered down 
was plainly out of the question. That high open¬ 
ing, rent through solid rock by some age-gone cata¬ 
clysm of nature, was far too narrow to offer pas¬ 
sage. Moreover, the cave roof sloped sharply up 
to the crack in a fashion that defied climbing. 

But the tunnels, they must lead somewhere! 
Vaik and Thord went groping down the first one, 
only to have it peter out in a mere crack that went 
down into the earth. Another outlet, and yet an- 



116 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


other ended thus. It was as though the mighty force 
which had hollowed out the main cavern had soon 
expended itself in tunneling the short cracks that 
radiated from it. 



Chapter IX 


-CAVE PRISONERS —~ 

I N a sort of hopeless persistence Thord and Vaik 
entered the last tunnel. It curved more than the 
others, dipped into the rock occasionally, as though 
following a wavering strata of softer substance. 
Sometimes it closed down to a mere crawl-passage. 
Sometimes it lifted into spaciousness. On and on 
it went. Then Thord’s hand, feeling along a wall, 
struck something that sent a thrill of joy through 
him. Wood! It was a wooden brace into which he 
had bumped. There were more of them further 
on; the whole passage was propped for a space. 
Wonderful! 

They were going the right way at last! Man 
had carved this pathway through the earth, and 
to man’s haunts it must surely lead. Expectation 
lent speed to faltering feet. The two pressed on 
excitedly through the darkness, hoping each mo¬ 
ment to glimpse the far pin point of light that meant 
an opening, an escape into the world outside. 

Then Vaik, who was in the lead, gave a cry as 
he thudded into a mass of earth and wood. There 
in the darkness they dug and clawed at the opposing 
wall with all their strength. But they were blocked 
—hopelessly. A landslide of cavern roof had burst 

117 




118 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


through and crumbled up the old supporting braces. 
The way out here was closed forever. All in a trem¬ 
ble, the cave prisoners turned and slowly began to 
retrace their steps. 

When at last they again reached the great main 
cavern, they dropped weakly down on their sleeping 
rock of the night before. A daze of fear held them. 
There was nothing else now save to make a try at 
getting out the way they had been swept in, through 
the terrifying blackness of the water tunnel. 

Finally Thord got to his feet and nervously began 
tying together the frayed bits of rope that had 
formerly bound him and Vaik to the oar seat. After 
he had achieved a cord of some length by piecing it 
out with strips rent from their leather garments, he 
and Vaik tied themselves together. There was suf¬ 
ficient rope between them to- allow freedom in 
swimming. 

Shivering, they crawled down, down the cave 
floor. The water deepened to hand’s depth, over 
the body, then to unknown vastness. Desperately 
tho two kicked and swam there in that awful 
cavernous tunnel where a smother of stone roof 
rose a bare six inches above the water. But strive 
as they might, a terrible suck, a current like the 
undertow of a tide, drew them back, back into the 
rocky hollow beneath the cliff. There was no escape. 
Beaten and pounded, they let themselves be drawn 
hopelessly into the shallow wash of the cavern 
backwater. Almost too tired to move, they dragged 
themselves partly out of water and lay across the 
rock to rest. 




CAVE PRISONERS 


119 


Another night fell and after an eternity another 
day broke and sent a ray of light down into the 
cave. 

That day a dead fish was washed into the cave 
trap. The prisoners tore it into two parts and de¬ 
voured it ravenously, washing the food down with 
gulps of river water. An unpleasant, soggy diet, 
but it helped. The comfortable sensation of food 
was cheering, after a fashion. Other fish might 
drift in. Or perhaps with a bone from this one as 
a hook they might even set lines, catch finned food 
in plenty for all their wants. With meat and water 
they could last indefinitely. 

A monotonous underground existence, to be sure 
—and they with the wealth of half a kingdom 
knotted about their skinny waists! The crude cat 
drawing on the wall seemed to leer down at them. 
Who were these puny mortals to think they could 
make off with the treasure he had sat guarding for 
six hundred years! Something of this passed 
through Thord’s mind. The stolid leer of the Hunnic 
cat irritated him. He felt an insane desire to fling 
off from his person this worthless gold that was a 
mockery now. 

But the anger and the indignation stirred his be¬ 
fuddled brain. With a return to his native shrewd¬ 
ness the Norse fellow remembered something, re¬ 
membered the broken bit of oar that had been 
sucked in after them. Where was it? 

All athrill to experiment, he dashed to the rear of 
the cave, dragging the roped Vaik after him. Gath¬ 
ering up the few precious faggot ends left from the 



120 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


crude hearth of long-gone occupancy, he hurried 
back to the tunnel mouth. 

One by one, and with long agonized waits be¬ 
tween, he flung in the bits of wood, and with heart¬ 
breaking regularity, saw them sucked back into the 
trap hole. Then at last a charred faggot swirled out 
and returned no more. With a mad cry, Thord, 
wdth Vaik behind him, plunged on hands and knees 
down the tunnel slope into deeper water, swimming 
frantically; and with the strangely fluctuating pull 
of the vortex sucking them now toward the outer 
world, they gained the blessed open of the river. 

Horror of the place from which they had just es¬ 
caped sent them swimming on desperately. Then 
exhaustion claimed them and they rolled on backs 
and floated. For a space they drifted thus, past 
cliff walls, on into a meadow stretch where reedy 
banks sloped gently to the river edge. Here they 
managed to pull ashore, to stagger drippingly a lit¬ 
tle way into the warm sunny grasses, and to drop 
in weary contentment. There was no sign of boat 
on the river behind, no movement of life on the 
plains before them—unless that dark, far-away 
speck in the dim distance might be a horse or horses. 

“Hark,” whispered Vaik as they lay in the grass, 
“I would keep that a secret.” He touched the 
other’s wet tunic where it faintly outlined the 
lumped treasure beneath. 

“Um—yes,” agreed Thord drowsily and was 
asleep the next moment. 

The distant dot on the horizon resolved itself 
into other dots, the whole drew nearer, a galloping 



CAVE PRISONERS 


121 


mass of horses and herders seeking a Danube drink¬ 
ing hole before dusk. They swarmed on like devil 
riders of the twilight, the Magyars of the plains, 
circling with piercing whistles around the vast horse 
herd and rounding up the whole at the river bank. 
Some of the foremost fellows, ecstatic with rush of 
life and wind, dashed their small tireless chargers 
smack into the river, swam about, and clambered 
out, shaking themselves like soused poodles emerg¬ 
ing from their bath. 

Into the midst of this swirling melee, Vaik and 
Thord, suddenly coming up like two half-drowned, 
battered spectres from out of the river grass, thrust 
themselves. Horses snorted; not a few riders laid 
ready hand on knife or dagger strapped at wrist. 
A swift leather lariat hissed through the air and 
there were the two of them trussed up together, 
helpless at one end of a rope, while at the other a 
half-wild horse bucked and reared beneath his rider, 
ready to be off at a run, to fray this roped hindrance 
to bits on the plain. 

Then as Vaik burst into a gutteral flow of ex¬ 
planation, all in their own tongue, the swarthy 
herders crowded in with words of welcome, and 
apologies for their near mistake. Thord, with his 
mere smattering of Magyar gleaned from Vaik, 
caught only here and there understandable words. 
He could piece together something of the conversa¬ 
tion though. 

Hui! Prisoners and slaves they’d been! Plowing 
—bound to an oar—tch, tch! A dog’s life to be 
sure! The wiry, leather-faced fellow with more 




122 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


arm ornaments than the others and with a gold 
stud thrust through the cartilage of his nose, ran a 
hand through his lank black hair. No, he couldn’t 
say he’d ever heard of Vaik’s father, Kenebog, nor 
his uncles, Ellwan or Essgau the Swift. Couldn’t 
know everybody on these thousand miles of pasture; 
but wait, there was a camp out beyond the valley 
land, herder chieftain there named Juga Dun, 
claimed to be kin to some sort of Swift One — 
maybe he was a cousin—they could ride that way 
sometime and see. 

With true hospitality of the plains the herder 
opened his food bag, a skin with holes around the 
edge through which ran a thong to gather it up. It 
contained curdled mare’s milk in clotted lumps, 
which he offered to the strangers, and which those 
famished ones found tasted far better than it 
looked. 

Then two herders lassoed for themselves a wild 
steed apiece, and with the newcomers up on their 
saddled beasts the whooping cavalcade was off. 
Thord, stiff and unpracticed after the long months 
of oar work, felt hugely over-big and clumsy among 
these supple, yellow-faced little horse herders who 
seemed as one with the steed beneath them. 

All the Magyar wealth was horses—horses and 
the odds and ends of plunder they had snatched 
from the terror-stricken civilizations of Europe in 
their various invasions. But the invasions were 
done for; the Magyar hordes had had the last fang 
pulled by Otho the Third, King of the Germans. 
From now on this seething, swashbuckling, brawling 



CAVE PRISONERS 


123 


mass of Asiatic pagans was to be confined beyond 
the Danube. And with their wild raids halted, these 
kumiss-drinking tent dwellers settled down into the 
free nomads of the steppes to live their own gallop¬ 
ing style of life beyond the pale of civilization. 

The Magyar herders kept the wealth of half¬ 
wild horses together by forever riding round them, 
adroitly giving them the direction wanted, and at 
the same time preventing any from straying. 

Into this careless, free existence Thord and Vaik 
were easily absorbed, half prisoners, half guests. 
They did their part of the hard riding and ate and 
slept with the others. After perhaps a moon of 
herding, the continual changing of pastures brought 
them near Juga Dun’s camp, he who might be a 
kinsman of Vaik. 

Juga Dun accepted Vaik with little concern. 
Likely enough they were cousins. A man couldn’t 
keep up with all his relatives in these days. 

He looked at Thord Fire tooth of the fair mane 
and big limbs rather askance. This was a queer sort 
to be consorting with a Magyar. But old Juga Dun, 
with all his vast herds to be looked after, could al¬ 
ways use more men, so he took them on, especially 
after he had heard of their life at the German 
castle. If they could cook, that was fine! 

Vaik had not exactly planned on being set to 
cooking when he had hunted up a supposed kinsman. 
But there was no particular way out of it—not at 
present, anyway. Juga Dun was a chieftain and 
rather a power in these parts. Later perhaps Thord 
and Vaik could drift on eastward and northward 



124 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


and come in contact with Vaik’s wandering family 
and close kinspeople. 

Thord Fire tooth cooking for a parcel of mangy 
Magyars! The tall Norseman, casting his mind 
back to other days, felt that this latter indignity 
was some nightmare incredible, a thing that could 
not be. 

But here he was in all reality, bending his back 
above a Hunnish pot and stirring the stew with 
a peeled willow wand in lieu of a spoon. And he 
was not even head cook at that—Vaik, with his 
culinary experiences at the castle, perforce must 
lead. 

The two of them were hard put to accomplish 
anything in this new line of endeavor that was 
forced upon them. What with jealousy of the 
weazened old females who had hitherto ruled the 
pots and with the vast lack of ovens and pans and 
seasonings, the cooks were at their wit’s end to pro¬ 
duce anything savory. 

A hole-in-the-ground oven was finally evolved 
where they managed to bake a flat bread in the 
ashes and roast fish and such. Tough horse meat 
for stew was made tender by being pounded between 
stones and flavored up with seasonings of onions 
and leeks. The fat, red-faced cook back at great 
Castle Hegau might have thrown up her hands in 
holy horror over the queer messes her erstwhile 
pupil concocted, but Vaik’s and Thord’s cooking 
seemed to tickle old Juga’s leathery palate. 

Their baking and boiling pleased other palates 
too. For whenever they could, Tzana and Hur- 




CAVE PRISONERS 


125 


reeka, Juga Dun’s daughters, would steal back to 
the busy place of pots and hearths to learn the 
stranger’s arts—they said. But more likely it was 
Thord’s wholesome comeliness which drew the two 
damsels. For he was far handsomer than the usual 
run of big-eared, yellow-skinned Magyars. 

“Tell me more about that German castle, or, no 
—better still, tell me about your sister, that fair 
princess of the icy north—her furs—the long-haired 
horses she rode,” Tzana would command from her 
perch on a great wagon wheel above the pots. 

She and the small Hurreeka were rather pretty 
for Magyars. True enough, Tzana’s face was flat 
and her skin of a colorlessness, but her sparkling 
eyes were richly black like old honey and her red 
lips and white teeth could smile most provocatingly. 
She was still half-child, hardly half through her 
teens. But soon she, and also the younger Hurreeka, 
would be betrothed and married off for a price to 
some horse-herder chieftain of the plains. Upon her 
would descend house-keeping cares of a tent or a 
leather-roofed wagon and its attendant rattle of 
brazen pots. 

“It’s best I should learn some of your secrets of 
brewing and baking,” said Tzana of the wistful 
smile, scrambling down from her perch. “How 
many grouse eggs and how much of cardamom do 
you mix in the—” 

But Tzana’s cooking lesson came to an untimely 
end. Her cousin Zohac, tramping in from the rear, 
roughly knocked her aside and sent her scuttling 
up front, muttering after her, “May Kutka shame 





126 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


you—the chief’s daughter—forever seeking out this 
alien, who like enough will bewitch you, even as he 
has bewitched our horses.” Turning back to Thord, 
Zohac’s voice rose in an angry shout, “You heard 
me, si, you devil, son of devils! We’ve found you 
out, you bewitcher of horses! Seven of them were 
dead behind the gulch this morning. You did it— 
you with the foreign curses you’ve brought among 
us. But your throat’ll be cut by night—ek, great 
Juga Dun shall be told all—great Juga Dun will 
have no foreign sorcerers in camp—” 

“It is false—I could not have harmed the 
horses—” Thord faced his accuser. “Not for days 
have I left camp. All here know that. I have been 
at the pots. How could I have been elsewhere at 
the same time?” 

“Si, si, easy enough, sorcerer!” interrupted a 
cracked old voice, as a frowsy woman’s head thrust 
out through a tent opening. She was one of the 
supplanted cooks. “Si, si,” her harsh voice, hoarse 
and dry, crackled on, “my ghost double warned me 
last night to beware of this horned viper warming 
himself among us—warned me he was up to mis¬ 
chief. He’ll be the death of us all. I say stone 
him!” 

“Ek—yes—stone the sorcerer! Juga Dun’ll stone 
him, or knife him!” Other voices took up the re¬ 
frain of threats. 

A shiver of despair swept over Thord. Simply to 
deny would be useless. Witchcraft, which stirs the 
ugliest depths of primitive peoples, is one of those 
weird accusations against which a vow of innocence 







CAVE PRISONERS 


127 


bears small weight. Thord Fire tooth knew well 
enough that his guilt could never be proved, but 
neither could his innocence. 

Thord also knew that Vaik would never desert 
him, though a Magyar himself. He had endured 
too much suffering alongside of him ever to be any¬ 
thing but a friend. Even now Vaik came to stand 
beside him, a picture of dumb misery, and offering 
the only thing he had—his steady devotion. Thord 
felt that Tzana and Hurreeka had not deserted him, 
either. But what could two girls do? Or again, 
what could Vaik do? 

For the rest of that day Thord sat dazed and use¬ 
less beside the crude earthen oven. Vainly his mind 
tried to conjure up some escape from the terrible 
situation in which he found himself. But there was 
no way out. He was trapped here among jealous 
tribe folk who wished to see him die. It was no use 
to try to escape on the plains. Though unfettered, 
he could feel, rather than see the vengeful glitter 
of watchful eyes. 

He could only wait—wait for Juga Dun’s return 
and Juga Dun’s judgment. 



Chapter X 


- THE BRIDE HUNT —— 

HE return of Juga Dun affected Thord’s case 



JL in a decidedly unexpected way—as unexpected 
to the accusers as to Thord himself. After a day of 
suspense in the Magyar camp where suspicion had 
hung over him like a cloud and hate had flashed 
upon him at every turn, he did not expect justice. 

Finally Juga Dun had come home and found his 
camp in confusion; his cook pots deserted, and a 
man accused of sorcery. 

Perhaps Juga Dun was out of humor because he 
was hungry and had been looking forward to his 
evening meal. For he turned against his underlings 
in a manner most surprising. 

“Sorcery!” 

The voice of Juga Dun was full of contempt. 

“What one of you horse herders or old women of 
the tents has any knowledge sufficient to speak of 
sorcery! Like enough the seven horses ate of the 
devil weed and died of cramps. At some later day 
when we come nearer the cave of the Hermit Z’faa, 
who is an oracle, I will ask him of this matter and 
learn the truth of the seven deaths. Time enough 
then to settle this question of how to kill him!” 


128 




THE BRIDE HUNT 


129 


With a lordly wave of the hand the matter was dis¬ 
missed. 

Thord was saved. Relief swept over him and left 
him weak and giddy with emotion. 

Yet with saner thought the sentence sounded 
more like a reprieve. He was to be saved over for a 
space for some purpose—very likely merely to cook 
a feast for the old fellow’s friends. After that his 
life hung on a word from a weird hermit whom he 
had never seen, and whom the jealous Zohac might 
easily manage to bribe into a decision against a 
hated stranger from beyond the great river. 

None the less a reprieve was better than nothing, 
and hope blossomed anew in Thord’s breast. Many 
things might happen before the herds grazed as far 
as the cave of Z’faa. 

So Thord settled back into his labors at crude 
hearths and swinging kettles and racked his brain 
to help Vaik prepare tender messes which would 
appeal to old Juga Dun’s appetite. Safety in this 
hostile gathering seemed to lie that way. The chief 
hindrance to any very successful culinary achieve¬ 
ment was the continual moving of camp. By the 
time he got used to one hole-in-the-ground oven, he 
had to dig another some forty miles further on. 

The grazing herds fed in a vast circle. To Thord’s 
eye the lands into which they were coming in the 
second moon of his life with the Juga Dun band 
seemed vaguely familiar. The rolling aspect of the 
country, the highlands that might be cliffs over there 
on a river—all things reminded him of the place 
where he and Vaik had first crawled out of their 




130 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


Danube refuge onto the reedy banks of the border¬ 
ing plain. 

Suppose they were ever drawing nearer the secret 
cliff cave! Dim plans for escape began to formulate 
in Thord’s mind. 

But for a space events closed in with such rapidity 
that there was scant opportunity for any thinking. 
It was now the time of the year when the great 
Magyar herd chieftains gathered in a sort of council 
to settle range disputes and decide boundaries for 
this and that tribe’s pasture land. What with the 
women folk and children brought along and the 
bartering of brides and the swapping of news, it was 
a festal occasion. The wily Juga had planned a 
great feast for a select part of this gathering, with 
a canny eye on gloriously feeding up the prospective 
husbands of his two marriageable daughters in 
view of extracting a better marriage price for them. 

For many days preparations went on for this 
auspicious event. Besides the carcasses of the rare 
wild urus oxen and tender colts, a quantity of fish 
and fowl and small game of the plains was brought 
in. From all over the camp rose a sound of grind¬ 
ing. Out of doors before the tent flaps yellow-faced 
Magyar women were hard at it, pounding grain be¬ 
tween pestle stones for the making of the flat cakes. 

Thord and Vaik were up to the ears in the dire 
task of concocting a great pie. Of civilized oven 
and pan and what-not-else there was naught. But 
old Juga Dun had once dined on meat pasty pie 
somewhere up in the land of the Franks, and meat 
pasty pie he must have for his festivity. So as 



THE BRIDE HUNT 


131 


Thord and Vaik rather valued their hides, they were 
diligently making meat pasty pie. 

For lack of other arrangement Thord was squat¬ 
ting beside a broad flat-topped rock with a fire be¬ 
neath it. Here he anxiously tended the delicate 
browning of huge thin slabs of dough kneaded 
flaky with ox tallow, the crusts for the many layered 
pie that was to be! With equal intensity Vaik 
hovered over a kettle of steaming pie filling, minced 
horse meat and onions and fish and every known 
variety of small game and fowl and a richness of 
spice seething through it all. Fine smell of baking 
and boiling fair smothered the camp in appetizing 
odors. 

With a rumbling and rocking of ponderous two¬ 
wheeled carts and a mad gallop of riders, the guests 
arrived. Men in embroidered leather and silver 
buttons, many a one using as saddle blanket a rich 
tapestry or priestly vestment rifled from some far¬ 
away Christian monastery, women perceptibly 
heavy-footed under a weight of jewelry and bangles, 
young girls with bright ribbons plaited in their 
hair and coin necklaces above their bodices. 

Not a few of the matrons had come on horseback, 
and here and there one shook a youngster out of 
the skin bag tied to her back, a flat-faced, slant¬ 
eyed morsel of humanity that had early got the 
galloping in its blood. All Magyars were born to 
horsemanship and looked well, mounted. But on 
foot, their defects of lean, shrunken bodies, ill¬ 
shaped faces, narrow, suspicious little eyes were 



132 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


doubly emphasized. Thord Firetooth, peering out 
from swirls of spicy steam, could not repress a long- 
drawn “ai-ee-ho! ” of dismay at the massed Magyar 
ugliness before him. 

In preparation Juga Dun had had a carpet of hay 
and straw spread over a great space within the 
camp. Here the noisy crew flung themselves, sit¬ 
ting at ease with crossed legs, to await the serving 
of the meal. 

And how they did eat! A whole spitted and 
roasted ox was brought forth first, followed sump¬ 
tuously with stuffed fowl and fish and stews and 
tidbits of liver. 

And while the great leathern vessels of wine and 
ale were going the rounds, in came the pie! It had 
been built, perforce, in a mighty cauldron, layer 
upon layer, crusts upon meats, and an uproar of 
spiciness steaming up from it. ’Twas like naught 
ever seen in civilized land, but it suited well old Juga 
Dun’s Hunnic guests. With cries of delight the 
whole troop fell upon it ravenously, though how in 
the name of sense they could hold any more amazed 
the wondering Thord. With their short swords they 
hacked out wedges of pastry, grabbled in for meaty 
bits with their fingers, and scraped out the last 
crumb in short order. 

Though matters of lands and feuds and bound¬ 
aries might be settled throughout the eating and 
afterwards even during the screech of fiedla and 
clash of cymbal and the mad whirling dancing of 
the younger crew, Juga Dun craftily waited till the 
bowls of spiced drink were brought forth for deeper 



THE BRIDE HUNT 


133 


revelry before he would listen to offers for the buy¬ 
ing of his daughters. 

A square-faced old herder from halfway across 
Asia had come to help his equally square-faced son 
buy a wife. There were young, devil-may-care 
riders from the region of Hortobagy and from the 
plains of Sogdi and from nearer Gatya—all wife 
hunting. Old Juga Dun had herds enough to in¬ 
terest them. And his daughters were not bad look- 
ing. 

It looked as if the thing could never be settled. 
Far on into the afternoon the wrangling went on. 
What would be the dowry, and how about the bride¬ 
groom’s gift? 

Tzana and Hurreeka, the two child brides whom 
all this most vastly concerned, were not consulted at 
all. They could have no say whatever in this casual 
disposing of their future lives, but must be stolidly 
sold off like an ox or a horse. 

The bidding waxed high. Pounds of gold and 
silver, herds of horses, leather tents were offered. 
An unexpected contestant entered the race—Zohac, 
who had had an eye on his Cousin Tzana all along. 
By an extra horse, he out-bid the rather genial- 
looking Si Lora from up Sogdi way. Si Lora met 
his offer and added a sheep. And thus it dragged 
on till everybody had offered all that any wife in 
reason was worth. Still matters were tied. 

Then amid this general dissatisfaction, Juga Dun 
arose and cut the bothersome knot with the an¬ 
nouncement that the affair should be settled with 
a good old-fashioned bride hunt, with everybody on 



134 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


horseback and a race. The contestant who caught 
a girl should have her, provided he had the price. 

A great “hulla!” went up. Fine! Besides his 
good feasting Juga Dun was providing a bit of 
extra excitement. 

Away from the laughter and the shouts, the slim 
Tzana made her cautious way to the rear where 
Thord and Vaik, ostensibly scrubbing pots with 
sand, were in reality disposing of various flat 
packages of pilfered food about their persons. 
They leaped to their feet in startled dismay at her 
approach. But Tzana was too absorbed in her own 
troubles to notice anything amiss. 

“Please,” she begged, her little fingers all 
atremble as she plucked at Thord’s sleeve. “Oh 
help me! It’s to be a bride hunt after Hurreeka and 
me. Zohac—we hate him so; he’s cruel; we once 
saw him beat a horse to death—he rides the fast¬ 
est stallion of the plains; he’ll catch one of us—” 

“B-but,” stammered Thord. 

“Wait, hear me,” hurried on the girl. “You want 
to be away from all this—want to escape; I can 
help you, get you both off.” 

Thord and Vaik crowded closer, faces lighting. 
It had been in their hearts to make an attempt this 
very night. They were sure now they were near the 
cliff cave where they could hide. 

“Listen well—but promise me you’ll help me if I 
tell you?” pleaded Tzana. 

The two nodded. 

“That gully, behind the camp, you know. Penned 
in there are Juga Dun’s fastest horses. While every- 



THE BRIDE HUNT 


135 


body’s drinking, get out a couple. You’ll find a nar¬ 
row, stone-blockaded entrance out there by that 
thorn bush—yonder, there. Oh, you can’t miss it. 
And when you are mounted and off, do—do this for 
us, for Hurreeka and me.” 

The girl thrust into Thord’s hand a crimson 
bundle, which unrolled, revealed itself to be a 
couple of brilliant crimson mantles, exact counter¬ 
parts of the mantle knotted about Tzana’s shoul¬ 
ders. 

“Wait for us, a little while, out there beyond the 
rolling hills. We’ll be far ahead of the others. 
When we catch up, give us then our chance, our 
chance for happiness. When we doff our red robes 
for blue and ride for the east, you two, wrapped in 
these crimson mantles, head for the west and the 
Danube. Bend low in the saddle, lead them on, 
make Zohac think you are women.” 

“Another skin of ale, more wine!” came cries 
from the feasters. 

As Thord hastened forward, bending beneath a 
great skin bottle, Tzana nervously halted him for a 
moment. 

“Can—can you tell him of Sogdi, Si Lora, what 
you know—which way we ride?” 

“Yes, yes,” and Thord was gone with his load. 

Warmed by his wine, Juga Dun’s guests had 
lifted their voices in singing. Two old chieftains 
struck up a ballad about King Attila’s loves, and the 
whole assembly joined loudly in the ribald chorus 
to a screeching accompaniment of fiedla and horn. 
Thord thought he had never heard such a heathenish 




136 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


racket. But the tumult served him well. As he 
filled Si Lora’s bowl, he managed to whisper: 
“Tzana rides east. Follow not red, but blue.” 

And the young fellow nodded solemnly at him 
over the rim of his bowl. 

One drinking bout followed another. And after 
the singing, more dancing—and then more wine 
again, until it seemed that no rider would be clear¬ 
headed enough to straddle a horse. But Huns are 
a tough-livered crew, and it takes a deal to down 
them. 

At last, when wrestling, warlike exercises and 
racing came to their turn, Thord and Vaik got a 
chance to steal out from camp unnoticed. 

A quick run down the gully paddock, out through 
the secret opening behind the hills, swift horses be¬ 
neath them—ola, it was hard not to be off at once, 
off for the Danube and freedom! 

But the promise to Tzana held them. 

The horses fretted and stamped. And the two 
young fellows sat wild-eyed and trembling. When 
would this thing be over? When could they get 
into action? And the same spectre of fear rode each 
one’s shoulder. Zohac of the swift stallion! Zohac 
the cruel! Suppose they couldn’t outrun him? 
Suppose he rode down one of these mock brides! 
To the unarmed runaway, it could mean naught 
but death. Life was sweet. Illah, but they must be 
off, leave Tzana to her fate! But something held 
the two shivering fellows to their promise—chivalry 
perhaps, a remembrance of a little trembling hand 
plucking at a sleeve. 




He rode as he had never ridden before . 


















THE BRIDE HUNT 


139 


Somewhere out behind, the tumult began. Horns, 
shouting, hallooing, thud of racing hoofs! Over 
the hilltop surged two splendid horses, bestrode by 
two girl riders bowed low and weeping with fright. 
Like a couple of little wild beasts they were to be 
run down and caught. 

A moment the four riders huddled together for a 
short word of farewell. Then the two girls changed 
crimson mantle for blue, eased around a thicket, 
and headed east. 

As the tumult of the bride hunt stormed over the 
hill, the leaders spurred onward after a pair of crim¬ 
son draped riders fleeing across the westward plain. 

Alas for any hopes Thord Firetooth had enter¬ 
tained of escape! Zohac the Magyar was most 
splendidly mounted. His handsome bay stallion 
kept the lead of all. Straight into the glow of the 
setting sun he galloped, gaining, gaining on the rider 
just ahead. Because Thord was the taller, and sup¬ 
posedly Tzana, he was Zohac’s victim. 

Across the plain the race strung out. The Norse¬ 
man rode as he had never ridden before, lashing 
and pushing his steed for every ounce of speed he 
possessed. 

“On, on! ” he prayed through set teeth. 

The Danube, it was in sight—he must make it! 

But the panting of the bay stallion was close be¬ 
hind him. 

In the twilight glow, Thord swerved and dodged, 
but Zohac’s strong, cruel hands were around him, 
dragging him off from the horse. He was shouting, 
“I have you, you swift Tzana! I’ll tame you!” 




140 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


And in that instant Thord, the erstwhile cook, 
snatched from beneath his garment a packet of 
pepper, flung the whole burning contents into his 
captor’s eyes, and wrenched himself free. 

As Zohac with a howl of pain lunged forward, 
Thord sped for the river, leaped in, and disappeared 
beneath the waters. 



Chapter XI 


™ HERO OF THE RAGGED CASSOCK ™ 

A S though sullen fate had once more deigned 
to smile on him, Thord had the luck again to 
reach the mysterious refuge of the Danube cliff cave 
—the cave that had once been so hateful to him, 
but now in his extremity seemed a dear haven. 

Leaping clear of Zohac’s hand, racing up bank 
to a position that he prayed was above the cave, 
plunging into the water, and surrendering to the 
will of the whirling currents, Thord Firetooth had 
been half smothered in the swirl of the pool, but 
withal had lived to surge through the tunnel into 
the comparative safety of the cavern. 

Vaik was already there. Being less hotly pur¬ 
sued, he had gained the refuge first. For three days 
they held to their chilly underground abode. The 
packets of food they had managed to store about 
their persons and the muddy river water kept life 
within them. And despite the twilight atmosphere 
and dank discomforts, their spirits soared high. 

They had outwitted their enemy—made a mum- 
mox of him, so to speak. What wouldn’t they give 
to be able to steal back invisibly to the Magyar 
camp to listen to the weird, superstitions, around- 

141 



142 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


the-fire talk concerning the witch brides that had 
led the bridegroom to be, Zohac, astray across the 
plains and evaporated before his eyes into a river 
mist! 

But could they have known in reality the venge¬ 
ful talk and plans of Magyar Zohac, their little 
bubble of self elation would have been cruelly shat¬ 
tered. 

In the dawning of what they figured must be 
about the fourth day they abandoned their cave, 
letting themselves be drawn back to the surface 
by the out-suck of the strange whirlpool current. 
From the reedy river bank they cautiously sur¬ 
veyed the great plains stretching green and rolling 
to the eastward. No sign of camp or herds or human 
beings showed upon the horizon. Juga Dun and 
his train had moved on, it seemed, to another sector 
of the thousands miles of grass. 

To his late captives, however, the other side of 
the Danube appeared more safe and appealing. 
Consequently they set about gathering such lengths 
of driftwood as they could lay hands on and with 
a wattling of vines, fastened these together into a 
crude raft. 

In the haste of their making, the raft was too 
flimsy to float even one of them. It served only as 
a sort of support they could cling to with one hand 
while swimming valiantly with the other. The 
river, smooth and quiet as it looked, carried them 
a good way down before they could make the op¬ 
posite shore. And then they landed in a reed bed at 
the outlet of a mashy lake where a host of wild 



HERO OF THE RAGGED CASSOCK 143 


fowl and duck whirred up indignantly at the in¬ 
trusion. 

Thinking it best to put more space between them¬ 
selves and any chance stragglers from Juga Dun’s 
herders, they halted in the marshlands merely long 
enough to bind more logs to their raft and to add 
two poles to their equipment. Then, alternately 
paddling and poling in the shallow depths, they 
worked laboriously onward along the edge of the 
lake that stretched back into the wooded country 
for miles. It was a wilderness world they were com¬ 
ing into—great dark trees fettered in lush vines, 
pale sunshine filtering through the rank growth, 
stealthy movement of deer and wild ox seeking 
the water holes. 

In keeping with the sylvan wildness of the place 
was a queer craft they suddenly came upon as they 
rounded a wooded promontory. It was a box-like 
affair hewn out of a log and roofed over with a mass 
of green branches. Unpropelled by oar, this ex¬ 
traordinary thing drifted with seeming aimlessness 
in the slight current and nosed into a growth of 
rushes. As a covey of wild fowl soared up ahead 
of it, from out of the floating bower of leaf work 
an arrow twanged and yet another, bringing down 
accurately a couple of plump ducks. Simultaneous 
with the fall of the game, the shooting screen above 
the dugout parted to a great rustling of branches 
and the huntsman concealed beneath upreared him¬ 
self and reached for his birds. This personage, here 
in the wilds of a Hunnic swamp, the two fugitives 
viewed with open-mouthed astonishment. For the 




144 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


thin, freckled, red-bearded figure that uprose like 
an apparition out of a swamp boat wore a brown 
cowl over his head and a faded brown cassock that 
hung to the knee in a ragged fringe. Along with 
his rosary, a quiver of arrows was tied to his waist 
cord. 

“Eheu!” exclaimed the ragged apparition, evi¬ 
dently as startled to see them as they were to see 
him. “Eheu, by the beard of holy Patrick, the 
blessed saint is at last sending me some one to con¬ 
vert. Oho, welcome, welcome to Elkorka’s little 
world!” he added in such a mixture of the Irish, 
Latin and Magyar tongues that the two on the 
raft scarce understood a third of his greeting. Nev¬ 
ertheless, they paddled nearer, drawn by the kindly 
welcome shining in the thin pale face. 

However, did these fugitives but know it, ’twere 
not so strange a thing to be finding an Irish monk 
even in this wild place. For the fiery zealots of 
Erin, ever since their conversion by the beloved St. 
Patrick of Armagh, had for centuries been coming 
over into Europe to do their share in converting 
the heathen there. Even now the Celtic brother¬ 
hood was sending its representatives along with 
mighty Olaf to Thord’s own northern homeland. 
Down in Burgundy and Gaul and Saxony they had 
already labored for hundreds of years. And now 
here was one godly fellow come all the far way 
across into Magyar land to bring by his lone self 
the Gospel to these wild people. 

Paddling his dugout closer, the kindly, nimble 
little man of the cassock helped the newcomers 



HERO OF THE RAGGED CASSOCK 145 


make a landing with their clumsy raft and drew 
it up on the lake shore. Then he led them along 
a dim path to his hut, a mere brush and wattle 
affair set before the mouth of an earthen hollow 
eroded by the elements back into the hillside. True 
to his stern Celtic upbringing, the good father had 
naught of comfort in his half-hut, half-cave dwell¬ 
ing—merely a pile of leaves for a bed and two 
rounds of tree trunk for seat and table. However, 
such as he had was at his guests’ disposal. With 
courteous grace he set out before them a portion 
of dried fish and a little bitter loaf made of acorn 
meal. This wiry, self-appointed missioner to a 
savage land was beholden to no man’s bounty for 
a living. By the sweat of his own brow had he 
felled the timber for boat and hut, and by his own 
fish spear and arrow did he gain his scanty sus¬ 
tenance. And like a hermit he had dwelled here 
some months now in seclusion and prayer in prepa¬ 
ration for his going forth to the Magyars. 

That some pious dispensation of providence had 
sent these fellows direct to him for conversion 
Elkorka never for a moment doubted. And straight 
into spiritual wrestling with their still half-pagan 
minds he entered. The simple meal was eaten to 
an accompaniment of lively conversation wherein 
the story of Thord’s and Vaik’s hard adventures 
were well mixed with Elkorka’s inquiries after the 
state of their souls and how far they had proceeded 
into regeneration. And then, in the midst of Father 
Elkorka’s shocked exclamation after his two wan¬ 
derers had informed him that they had more often 




146 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


worshiped the sun, than Him who made the sun, 
there burst a sound of mighty trampling down on 
the lake shore and clang of shield and shouts. 

Thord and Vaik, prickling to their hair roots in 
a shiver of fear at the sound—it was Zohac’s voice 
that roared above the rest—rose and glided sound¬ 
lessly back, back into the earthen recesses of Father 
Elkorka’s cave. This sudden descent of the enemy 
sapped their courage. Who would think that they 
would have been tracked so soon? And trapped 
in here now, with no way out! 

In the midst of the psalm that Father Elkorka 
began peacefully to chant, through the doorway 
burst the Magyar Zohac, a bandage across one 
eye and a rabble of followers at his heels. 

“Where are those vile sorcerers, those witch men 
that have escaped us? The rogues! One shall be 
hanged and the other chopped into little morsels! ” 
he shouted angrily. “We trailed them by muddy 
footprints, by log raft; they are here. Hand them 
over!” 

But ever so quietly the old monk came forward. 

“Peace, my son. Seest thou not thou are dis¬ 
turbing my worship?” 

In amazement at such calm, the barbarian fell 
back a little. The gleam of eye, the uplifted hand 
of the man of God, no doubt struck him with a cer¬ 
tain awe; but as he retreated he muttered on: “I 
want them; they must die.” 

“Kneel!” cried the holy man in his smattering 
of Magyar. “We will pray over this matter. This 
is the house of God. Thou must beware!” 



HERO OF THE RAGGED CASSOCK 147 


Like men in a trance, the wild ruffians obeyed 
and bowed their heads. But in the midst of El- 
korka’s long prayer for their souls the Hunnic men 
rose up and ran from the hut, holding up their hands 
as if to ward off something. To their crude minds 
the fervid utterings of this fiery-eyed priest were 
mere incantations that sat heavily upon their 
heathen hearts. They feared an evil eye or some 
other curse from the sonorous splendor of his un¬ 
known Latin declamation. 

“Ah, they are gone! And I had hoped to con¬ 
vert them!” he announced regretfully, gazing after 
the rout of Huns taking to horse and galloping off 
through the trees as though the devil himself were 
on them. After this startling experience Vaik felt 
more strongly than ever the urge to be on his way 
to his own kin and the home tents of his tribe. He 
fell to pleading with Thord to be away with him 
up into the northern steppes of Hunland, to lead 
the wild free life forever. But the grip of the south 
was upon Thord Firetooth. Constantinople, city 
of his dreams was calling him. Some day destiny 
must lead him there. And perhaps its golden gate 
would open the way back to Norway by the ships 
that rove the sea paths—back to Nord Fjord, back 
to seek the little lost Thora. 

But the parting held deep grief for both Thord 
and Vaik. They had seen so much of life together 
—this strangely assorted pair, blond Norseman and 
yellow-skinned Magyar. Their love, though, had 
nothing to do with skin. It was wound about their 
hearts. 




148 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


The wrench of parting left them both shaken. 
The call of blood kin drew Vaik on, a lonely small 
figure, tramping off on the north trail with a food 
pack and little else. Thord, after a last tight hand¬ 
clasp, stood watching his friend go, watching till 
his eyes blurred and he had to drag his knuckles 
across them. 

Yes, Vaik had to go. Thord had to stay. It was 
fated, perhaps. 

Father Elkorka, who had been on many a pil¬ 
grimage himself and knew a deal about Danube 
boats and the pilgrims thereon, held out a hope to 
Thord that likely enough some pilgrim convoy 
would come down the river that he could join and 
go in safety to the “City of the Many Shrines.” 

Then, too, the ragged, fervent, red-bearded Irish 
monk strangely fascinated the Norseman. This 
man had power. Had he not, unarmed and by mere 
words, put to flight a Hunnic rabble? Thord would 
know more of this power. An admiration for the 
strong spirit in the frail body awoke in his heart. 

Father Elkorka was a worthy antagonist in the 
war of words they continually waged throughout 
Thord Firetooth’s stay in the hut by the lake. 
Thord had been “prime signed” with the sign of 
the cross up in Germany, and had listened to a 
great deal of chanting by the plump, comfortable 
monks of the Hegau monastery. Never before, 
however, had much understanding of Christianity 
sunk into his heart. 

“But how, good Father,” Thord would say, re¬ 
membering back to his wrongs and his enslaving, 



HERO OF THE RAGGED CASSOCK 149 


and thirsting for vengeance, “how can a strong 
man suffer violence without fighting back?” 

And Elkorka would answer: “Eheu, man, it 
sometimes takes more of strength not to fight than 
to fight.” 

As they hunted through the forest for their daily 
meat and labored at the hut, the good monk was 
ever at his explaining how love was better than 
hate, and peace than war, and the White Christ 
better than pagan Thor or Frey. 

And the nights with the millions of stars and 
silver disk of moon and hush of the universe—it was 
the night most of all that helped Father Elkorka 
turn Thord Firetooth from a desperate groping 
after the old bloody gods into a trust in the One 
God. 

“Ha, Thord, has one god marshaled the stars 
and another god fashioned the moon, and doth an¬ 
other god hang the sun in the sky every morning? 
What, can one deity water the earth while a rival 
god nourish the harvest, and yet other jealous 
powers rule ocean and rivers and sea, rule ani¬ 
mal kind, mineral kind, mankind! Na, Thord, 
think! All things are in harmony. The power that 
brought forth the stars brought forth all. Why 
not worship that one power—the One God?” 

But there came a time, all too soon, when Thord’s 
guidance in things omnipotent was cruelly cut off. 

As he neared the hut one day after he had been 
afar up on the lake shore fishing, a cry of mortal 
anguish sent him racing through the undergrowth 
in a swift, noiseless run, hand defensively grip- 




150 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


ping his fish spear. It was a piteous sight he burst 
upon—Father Elkorka weltering in a pool of blood, 
while above him crouched Zohac, snarling: “There, 
thou old sorcerer! Thou’ll bewitch no more!” 

With a cry of rage Thord leaped upon the mur¬ 
derer, choking him backward to the ground, spear 
point at his heart. 

“Lift thy blade—peace!” came a faint arresting 
cry from the stricken priest. “Enough of blood is 
shed. Be strong enough—not to shed more—my 
son, be strong”—The words ended gaspingly. 

Thord held his iron grip. After a space the voice 
went on: “Surely, O Thord, if I forgive this man, 
thou canst. This poor wretch hath a soul to be 
saved too, and I would save it—and I would save 
it—my one convert in all this land. Bring him 
near me.” 

With the Norseman’s strong hand at his throat 
the Magyar bowed before his victim. But even 
without compelling he must yet have come, drawn 
against his will by the power in those dying eyes. 

“Kneel—closer, quickly, before I go,” with a 
mighty effort Elkorka lifted his hand and touched 
Zohac. “Here on the brow I sign thee with the 
cross of Christ. Go—and sin—no—more.” and 
with these failing words life failed. 

For a moment Zohac knelt on, a strange wild 
light in his eyes; then he leaped to his feet and fled 
into the wilderness. 

And Thord hindered him not. 

But “Oh my Elkorka, my Elkorka!” burst from 
his anguished lips as he flung himself to the ground. 





GATES OF THE CITY 


151 


“You were right! It takes far more of strength not 
to fight—not to fight for you!” 

When many days later a boatload of pilgrims 
came down the Danube, Thord Firetooth, lonely 
watcher of the river bank, was allowed to join their 
safe convoy. To Constantinople, “City of a Hun¬ 
dred Shrines,” the Norseman went, carrying en¬ 
shrined in his heart many a blessed word of Father 
Elkorka, writ there in a Martyr’s Blood—words 
that Thord Firetooth remembered, and only some¬ 
times forgot. For Constantinople the Glorious was 
a city not only of beauty, but of dangers too for one 
with a belt of unspent gold about his waist. 



Chapter XII 


—— GATES OF THE CITY- 

A CROSS the warm southern waters of the Black 
Sea labored a blunt-nosed river ship, a Dan¬ 
ube craft, that with many another humble bit of 
shipping had drifted the far winding way across 
half a continent and had swept with the river cur¬ 
rent into this inland sea. 

From Black Sea waters, the boat passed into 
the narrow famous waterway of the Golden Horn. 
Somber figures in brown tunics and monkish hoods 
now thronged the boat sides—pilgrims bound for 
the holy shrines of Constantinople. Before their 
ecstatic eyes there arose in the glow of sunset the 
seven towers and the gleaming marble masses of 
palaces, cupolas and churches. Here above the blue 
waters stood out the dark green of royal cypress 
groves, there the gigantic dome of Sancta Sophia, 
and further on the towering granite of transplanted 
obelisks. 

Not less eager than the pilgrims themselves 
was the blond, ragged Norseman in their midst. 
Thord Fire tooth was overcome with his own species 
of awe as he gazed upon the glittering city of the 
Cape of the Golden Horn. 

152 




GATES OF THE CITY 


153 


Galatia in Asia lay only a stone’s throw to the 
left of them, but Europe’s golden sacred city to 
the right held every attention in that boatload of 
pilgrims. Their craft swept down the waterway, 
past the port of the Ferry, and on to that port 
known as the Gate of St. Peter, and much fre¬ 
quented by foreign sailing masters. At last they 
were in the harbor itself, but not yet could they 
make a landing. Already many another ship, square 
sails set and all the oars at work, had pushed in 
ahead of the dingy river craft and secured place 
along the quay. The commotion at the ancient 
landing was most uproarious. With great shouting 
of the oarsmen a vessel was brought close and an¬ 
chored and the unloading begun. Camels and por¬ 
ters and donkeys, drawn up in noisy array, were 
loaded with the cargo and disappeared up the shore 
citywards. 

From many a land came the ships that, like fly¬ 
ing birds seeking a rest, hovered in sea berths near 
the quay—spice galleys from India, lateen sails 
of Egyptian craft, and once a splendid pleasure 
boat all white and gilt, with gilt and crimson oars 
and a crimson canopy. Ola, this last vessel must 
bear royalty! Thord, straining his eyes through 
the mysterious flashes of blue Greek fire playing 
over the harbor in honor of this one’s approach, 
saw an array of battle-axes drawn up on the shore 
and behind them priestly banners and vestments. 
Music of horns and cymbals rolled out. 

With all this performance on land and sea it 
was night, and flash of torches flared along wall 



154 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


and shore by the time the pilgrim passengers made 
port and came to the city wall. They stood at 
that high entrance, the arch of St. Peter’s Gate with 
its contradictions of peaceful gilt figures on its 
pedestals and a massive, dart-throwing engine of 
war set upon its top. In these days of barbarian 
nations warring almost at one’s doors, Constan¬ 
tinople turned a cold and military frown upon 
those who came to her walls. So it was that the 
humble, brown-cowled suppliants seeking the city’s 
shrines found her gates locked against their night¬ 
time arrival. The massive leaves of the entrance 
were folded shut, and above a narrow, iron-bolted 
wicket a centurian and his armed comrades held 
guard. Those who chose to enter the city by night 
must pay, and pay well, for the privilege. This 
was a perquisite the guards demanded for their 
own pockets—an arrangement quite without the 
city’s knowledge, be it said to Constantinople’s 
credit. 

“Thy silver—let us see thy silver!” challenged 
the warder, Symachus, his avaricious eyes lower¬ 
ing disdainfully over the poor-looking crew with¬ 
out. “Think you the imperial guard of this im¬ 
perial city will open the bars for mere oboli of 
brass and copper? A silver piece from each of 
you!” 

This unforseen dilemma sent dismay through 
the monkish band without. Like most poor way¬ 
farers to the shrines, they had little of coin to be 
spent in aught but bare sustenance. But in the 
midst of their opening of lean wallets Thord Fire- 



GATES OF THE CITY 


155 


tooth, who had been fumbling at the weighty belt 
beneath his own ragged garments, suddenly stepped 
forward, holding up to the gate centurian’s very 
nose a splendid, glittering golden ring—a ring that 
must have graced some potentate’s hand ere At- 
tila’s Huns had looted it. 

“Wait, good fathers!” he cried. “My piece of 
gold will open the gates better than all your sil¬ 
ver. Ha, will it not?” and he turned the gorgeous 
jewel to catch the torchlight on its facets. 

“Yes, yes!” The gateman pocketed the fee he 
had unlawfully forced, and his greedy eyes gazed 
in amazement at the ragged fellow who had prof¬ 
fered such wealth. 

As though oiled with gold, the massive leaves 
of the entrance folded back. The pilgrims were 
within the city; yea even more, under the cen- 
turian’s order a couple of his men were hurrying 
them forward in a seemingly kindly escort through 
the maze of streets to some hostelry afar from 
the place. 

But one pilgrim, that newest and humblest of 
converts to Christianity, Thord Firetooth, was not 
with them. In the confusion and haste of the en¬ 
trance a mail-clad leg had tripped him to a nasty 
fall in the dust of the roadway, and the massive 
gates clanged shut before his face. Now ere he 
could rise another kick landed on his ribs, and 
out of the torch-lit dimness a voice snarled at him: 
“Up varlet! Hand over the rest of the gold! We 
saw you draw the ring from the hidden store be¬ 
neath the rags.” 



156 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


In a daze Thord still crouched. His gold! His 
jewels! This robber of a gateman would steal all 
from him, would likely enough kill him into the 
bargain. Ya, but would he? In one swift, strong 
leap Thord plunged up and forward, butting his 
assailant violently in the stomach. With a groan 
the Greek doubled across the middle and stag¬ 
gered drunkenly. In that moment Thord, his head 
reeling from its own blow, dashed for darkness and 
freedom. However, he had not counted on the cen- 
turian’s fellow accomplices. A spear whistled past 
his ears, another and another. He brought up pant- 
ingly, trapped against an out-jutting flange of the 
wall, got his back to a corner, and faced his pur¬ 
suers desperately, his wooden stave in one hand, 
drawn knife in the other. 

Two of them were at him; but he fought them 
off, swinging his stave in lightning parry to sword 
thrust. “HolaOdin! HolaOdin!” All unconscious, 
the old war cry of the north rose to his lips. Metal 
had slashed him, but his stave had cracked against 
bone. Illah-ya, his wounded arm was numb 
through! He was weaking fast. “Merciful Christ, 
save, save!” he panted between blows. 

Then “Hola Odin!” came an echoing cry to his 
astounded ears. At a rush of oncoming footsteps 
his opponents fled. “Hola Odin!” it came again, 
closer. “Northman answers Northman! Where are 
you?” 

“Here, here!” and Thord dashed forward from 
his wall niche. 

The thieving warder of the gate and his accom- 



GATES OF THE CITY 


157 


plices evaporated as into thin air. Some wicket in 
the city wall opened and closed behind their nefari¬ 
ous backs. But there before the battlements of 
Constantinople, in the uplifted, searching light 
of their torches was revealed to Thord Firetooth 
such a sight as had not gladdened his eyes in all the 
long years of his exile—Norsemen, some six or 
seven of them, great blond giants in surcoats of 
bearskin and dragon helmets and bearing glittering 
battle-axes on their shoulders. 

“Who gave the Odin cry?” 

“ 5 Twas I, Thord Firetooth, one time of the North 
Country. The gate warders here were like to have 
robbed and killed me. But you—” amazed, he 
limped nearer, reaching out a hand to touch the 
newcomers. “Who are you, dropping down out 
of the night like the old gods?” 

“Not gods,” laughed the foremost of the Norse¬ 
men in a pleased note withal, “but we be part of 
the Varangians, of the battle-axe guard of His 
Majesty, ruler of this holy city. From the plight 
you were in, ’twere lucky for you, it seems, that His 
Majesty lost a missive of state at the landing this 
eve and sent us back to recover it.” 

“The Varangians!” Thord Firetooth caught his 
breath. Who had not heard of the famous Norse 
guard of the Greek emperor, picked corps of north¬ 
ern warriors come hither across the pathless wastes 
of Russia or adown the ocean and across the Medi¬ 
terranean in their longboats, answering the lure 
of adventure! The known world had rung to their 
valor. 





158 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


“E-hu! Friend of the North Country, now that 
we have found you, best come on into the city with 
us,” kindly added Hervor, captain of the battle- 
axes. “Else those harpies of the gate will be after 
you again. Follow on.” 

The officer led away from St. Peter’s Gate and 
on along the outside of the walls. At last after a 
wearisome circuit they arrived at a small sally port 
opening on the interior of a massive advance work 
which formed an entrance to the city itself. Three 
swift raps and the password, “Ho, Varangians,” 
served as talisman to open the portal. The small 
heavy door swung inward; four warders, each pre¬ 
senting a spiked battle-axe, guarded the passage. 
At sight of their comrades without, weapons were 
grounded and an entrance permitted. Over a long 
narrow bridge projecting across the city moat and 
here inclosed in the rampart, the soldiers, with the 
ragged Thord in their midst, came not only into the 
city, but into that great dwelling of the emperor 
himself, the Palace Bucoleon. Thus the Firetooth 
came into Constantinople, not by the common gate¬ 
way, but through an entrance trod by many a king. 
As his soldier friends hustled him on to an humble 
apartment near their own Spartanly bare barracks, 
he caught glimpses here and there of the palacial 
elegance through which he was wafted—silken car¬ 
pets, lamps of incense, marble and gilt and fres¬ 
coing. 

The ragged wanderer darted excited glances 
every whichway at once. Ehui! What an en¬ 
trance he was having into the city of his dreams! 




Chapter XIII 


~ CONSTANTINOPLE THE GOLDEN — 

H E who sits in the Portico of Praxedo can see 
the world go by!” so said the dwellers of 
Constantinople. 

The young man in the purple cloak and the gold- 
embroidered shoes, who sat slouched against a wine 
table just within the portico, thought there must 
indeed be truth in the saying. Even in one turn of 
the hour-glass, the watcher at the wine table had 
seen such a cosmopolitan throng surge from the 
water front, through the bazaars, and on up the 
great paved plazas as would prove Constantinople 
to be the trysting-spot of the nations. 

Before him had passed Syrians, Bulgars, Slavs, 
Franks in clanking armor, velvet-clad Italians, 
shaggy-haired Patzinaks and Khazans, also Hin¬ 
doos, Negroes, and even an occasional Chinese. 
The watcher had blinked a bit at the costumes. 
Here had passed stately Arabs, swathed in striped 
robes from head to foot. In close conjunction strode 
a string of blacks from the African Kush, huge 
ebony fellows, naked to the waist, with tiger-tooth 
gorgets and ivory anklets. Now had come a bevy 
of women, veiled (for Greek Constantinople was 

159 


160 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


well touched by Oriental customs), and stepping 
mincingly along on wooden sandals with blocks 
under them to raise the feet out of the dust. Other 
veiled women of higher degree had gone by in their 
gilded boxes, or sedan chairs, borne on the shoul¬ 
ders of livried runners. A Turk in a turban so colos¬ 
sal as to give him a magnificent aspect; a Russian 
in fur hat and fur robes, smelling reminiscently of 
fish, but well looped in gold chains; a Bulgarian 
with three knives in his belt; student youths with 
manuscript rolls under their arms, monks in brown 
robes, monks in gray robes, a Gypsy story-teller 
seeking listeners—oh, the world crossed your path 
here! 

Belled donkeys leading long files of camels, gilded 
arabas drawn by oxen, horse-drawn telekas with 
satin curtains went up the Mese , or paved way. 

The watcher behind the wine glass looked on, but 
without great interest. In the months that he had 
been here, he had already seen so much. This one 
was Thord Firetooth, but a very changed personage 
from that Thord who had fought for and lost a 
castle in the North Country, who had served over 
half of Europe as thrall to plow, huntsman for a 
duchess, slave to an oar, and lately had been a 
wanderer over the Hunnic marches till he had 
found freedom of body in Father Elkorka’s hut 
and freedom of mind in Father Elkorka’s words 
that had taught him the true meaning of the One 
God. 

Back in Germany at the castle of Lord Iron- 
Arm, the Greek woman had told the Firetooth of 



CONSTANTINOPLE THE GOLDEN 161 


the splendor of the churches of Constantinople. 
Blessed Father Elkorka had planned to come some 
day to its hundred shrines. Humble pilgrims on the 
boat down the Danube had looked with longing 
to the time when they should set foot within this 
great religious center with its churches and its 
monks 7 cells on every hill. 

So to Constantinople, city of his young dreams 
and ideals, Thord Fire tooth had come with a quiver 
of hope in his heart of here being in nearer touch 
with God. 

From the lodging that Hervor the guardsman 
had gotten for him near the barracks, Thord had 
set out to see and to learn what this city held for 
him. With other pilgrims, he bent the knee at 
many shrines. He stood in the nave and listened 
to the chimes and chants of Bartholdi Chapel. He 
followed the paved way up beyond the Aqueduct 
of Valens to services at the Church of the Apostles. 
He attended a stately midnight watch in the 
greatest church of them all, Sancta Sophia, with 
its domes and gilded columns, its jewels in altar 
and rail and pillar. He saw the sea of light from 
swinging silver lamps. He heard choirs chant from 
hidden balconies. It was all grand, spectacular, 
beautiful. But it left him cold. There was no hu¬ 
manness in it, no reaching out in brotherly love. 
No one here preached God. All the sermons he heard 
were full of cant and creed, and the hard words 
some Christian sects had for other Christian sects 
in the ritualistic battle that had split Christendom 
into schisms. Such things as whether it was right 



162 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


to bend the knee twice, as the White Brotherhood 
contended, or thrice as the Gray Brothers declared. 
“Heretic!” was the name given to all who did not 
agree to the set order. And heretics—so Thord 
heard tell—were often given dreadful punishments 
when the brotherhoods could bend the law to their 
will. 

Once indeed, a young monk—he might have 
been from Thord’s own cold north, so blond was 
his hair, so fiery blue were his eyes, Brother Nila, 
he was called—did start a preachment that held 
his Norse listener spellbound. It was in a chapel 
of the Sancta Sophia. Thord, along with a packed 
concourse, stood upon the stone floor, eyes turned 
to the preacher, who loomed tall and still, no move¬ 
ment of long arms or body, but whose voice had 
all the fire and movement. 

“Listen, all men, we of the great city have be¬ 
come so embattled in our schisms and divisions 
that we have lost sight of the real meaning of our 
religion. ’Twere better to think about loving your 
neighbor, and feeding the poor, and succoring the 
sick in Christ’s name than to spend all time in 
quibbling over how many bows to make, how to 
bend, and how to make the sign with the fingers. 
Better just to say the simple creed, ‘I believe in God 
and Christ, His Son,’ than to go wandering off in a 
fog of words containing pronouncements our Lord 
never made. Love of God and love of man, is the 
only Way to Heaven. Nothing else shall avail. 
What matters it that the Gray Brotherhood say 
make the sign of the cross with three fingers, and 



CONSTANTINOPLE THE GOLDEN 163 


the White Brotherhood say make it with two fin¬ 
gers. That is a mere clutterment. I say cast all 
clutterment out of your lives, follow the straight 
Way—” 

The preacher never finished his fiery sermon. 

“Heretic!” 

It was a dread epithet, hissed on the air. 

Gray hoods took it up. White hoods spread it. 
“Heretic! Heretic!” A mass of robed men closed 
around the speaker, swept him from view. Sono¬ 
rous chants filled the chapel. But they did not 
fill Thord’s heart. He wished to hear more of the 
speaker. What had happened to him? 

Afterwards, Thord came again to that small 
stone-paved chapel, came again to other churches 
near by. But he heard no more preachers like that 
Nila—heard, instead, only factions of a divided 
church warring against each other in words. Greek 
worshipers noisily left the cathedral when those of 
the Roman branch of Christendom were wont to 
take their Sacrament. Roman orders made unpleas¬ 
antness for the former worshipers. It was not reli¬ 
gion. It was only two human factions, each trying 
to force its own way upon the masses. 

So it was that Thord Firetooth had failed to find 
in Constantinople the spiritual ideal which he had 
dreamed. A something that he had believed was 
snatched from him. His heart held a terrible empti¬ 
ness which he sought to close over, sought to hide 
under other phases of life. 

But Constantinople, that had failed in one way, 
had lurement in plenty to offer in other ways. It was 



164 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


a city of passing strange dazzle and wonders. For 
a hardy youth from the North Country, it unrolled 
a temptation of soft luxuries such as he had never 
dreamed existed. 

The sleeping quarters that his Varangian friend 
had first secured for Thord Firetooth, was on a side 
street beyond the barracks, a clean, small room, with 
a matting rug, a bench for a bed, and a stool to sit 
upon. From here, the Norse fellow, with a fortune 
in gold and jewels in his belt, had stepped forth, 
walked a few hundred yards, and found himself 
engulfed in a world of luxury. Behind him lay the 
whole south-east angle of the city, given over to the 
Imperial Palace Compound, one hundred and fifty 
acres of buildings for the housing of royalty! Just 
north and west of this lay the Augustaeum, a plaza 
more glorious than anything Rome ever saw. A 
thousand feet long, three hundred wide, marble- 
paved, it was bounded by palaces, the marble ele¬ 
gance of the Baths of Zeuxoppos, churches, the sen¬ 
ate house and the vast bulk of the Hippodrome. 

From here the Mese, the great triumphal paved 
way of Constantinople, led on between palaces, clear 
across the metropolis to emerge at the Golden Gate, 
magnificent arched entrance in the south-east city 
wall. 

Every vehicle that traveled the Mese seemed 
patterned in luxury, sedans inland with gold, car¬ 
riages spread with gilt and carvings and lacquer. 
Small wonder that for the Norseman walking on his 
own legs down this luxury street—the more so, after 
the starved years of blows and toil that had been 



CONSTANTINOPLE THE GOLDEN 165 


his—the soft city elegancies began to awaken a 
passion for luxuries. Not many days after his ar¬ 
rival, he had the chance to see the most pompous 
of all the pomps of the Golden City, and with it 
opportunity to prostrate himself along with the 
rest of Constantinople before the emperor. That 
august personage rode abroad of a morning in a 
style of state imported from the East. Before Thord 
Firetooth’s wondering eyes there paraded a huge 
animal, the like of which was all unknown in his 
northern world—the elephant! On its back, housed 
in a palanquin of crimson and ivory, sat the head 
of the imperial government. About him advanced 
a cloud of waving plumes and flashing lances. The 
high crest of the sounder of the sacred trumpet went 
on before, clearing the way for royal progress. It 
was all most showy and wealthy and magnificent. 
And Thord Firetooth, rising up out of the roadway 
and shaking the dust from his garments, felt a sud¬ 
den passionate longing to be magnificent also, to 
be bowed down to. 

And so a goodly part of his jewel hoard went for 
fine raiment and a rich apartment and a round of 
pleasures. The gay night life of Constantinople 
took him into its insidious embrace and showed him 
a side of living of which he had never dreamed. He 
saw no more of the soldiers of the guard. Their 
stern, sturdy existence, like unto his own old life 
up in the North Country, seemed bare of glamour 
compared to dazzling wineshop and tavern and a 
host of other excitements. Forgotten now were all 
the high plans made back up in Magyar Land— 



166 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


plans that were to lead to a ship, the sea-paths, 
the way back to Nord Fjord and Thora. Father 
Elkorka, who had died for Christ, became a dim 
vision of the past. Instead of high thoughts, giddy 
hours at the Gardens of Cybele filled all Thord’s 
time. 

It was a strange place—that place of the Gar¬ 
dens of Cybele. In the long ago when the site of 
Constantinople had been a heathen settlement, 
the worship of the Egyptian goddess Cybele had 
been inaugurated on this spot. The shrubbery of 
the garden was still set with slabs of semi-defaced 
hieroglyphics and huge fantastic images having cow- 
heads and dog-heads and other strange-headed 
creatures of the wild Egyptian doctrines. Here a 
swarthy-faced Oriental conducted a pleasure gar¬ 
den with gay wreaths on the extravagant images, 
and little tables for dice, and dancing girls in 
Eastern robings to while away the hours. 

Soon, to the clean-minded Norseman, the brazen 
pleasures he sought came to be an emptiness and an 
oppression. Yet in a young man’s stubborn bravado, 
he plunged in the deeper. The gamesters of Cybele 
had won full half of his treasure—more than enough 
to have bought the ship he had once dreamed of. 
Already over this gold that had been his, he had 
seen one drunken gambler knife another in the 
back. And in that moment, his soul went sick over 
what he was doing with his wealth. 

Then it was, too, he had first begun to hate this 
golden Constantinople. So much of its glitter cov¬ 
ered misery. It was a city divided against itself. 





CONSTANTINOPLE THE GOLDEN 167 


It had a multitude of churches with golden domes 
and mosaic floors, but its church people and its 
preachers were split asunder by bitter wranglings. 
It had long streets full of marble palaces and sculp¬ 
tured columns, but it had many more streets that 
were vile lanes of mud and dust, bordered by win¬ 
dowless dens, unlighted at night, given over to 
poverty-stricken masses, wandering dogs, numer¬ 
ous thieves. So flaunting was iniquity that it seemed 
if Constantinople surpassed all cities in riches, it 
did also in vice. 

A city of filth and wealth! It had taken his 
dreams and given him nothing in their place. So 
he kept on gambling and carousing. Well, why not! 
Constantinople that had loomed so glorious be¬ 
fore he saw her, was nothing but an empty golden 
lure. Ek-a! Maybe life was only an empty golden 
lure! Better take another drink, and cast another 
coin! 

The Thord Firetooth that lounged against a wine 
table in the Portico of Praxedo was an elegant fop. 
Instead of sturdy leather jerkin and boots and brave 
sword belt of the old days, he was now swathed 
in a bright purple cloak hanging in ample folds from 
an exaggerated buckle of jewels on his left shoul¬ 
der. Another buckle caught the cloak to his knee. 
Va, what an arrangement! How would a fellow 
ever walk or run or get to the rapier at his belt! 
Rakish cap with a feather in it, tunic and hose of 
saffron, silly shoes of red and black stripes and 
turned up in long pointed toes—what an outfit for 
a Norseman! This Thord no longer had a bronzed, 




168 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


clear skin. His very face seemed to sag, and his 
eyes had drinkpuffs under them. 

So looked Thord on this day as he slouched 
against a wine table on the Portico of Praxedo 
and watched the world pass by on the paved way 
of the Mese. He banged his goblet on the table 
top and an attendant came softly and poured more 
wine into it. Across from him lounged one Thyrtis, 
a gamester companion from the haunts of Cybele, 
drinking as usual on Thord’s payment. 

“Heigh-o! Let’s be g-getting on to the H-H-Hip- 
podrome,” hiccoughed the gamester. “ Great doings 
there, s-s-so folks say. Better come see—” 

Thord had been to the Hippodrome before, had 
seen there many fetes and processions and the horse¬ 
races between the “Blues” and the “Greens,” two 
political organizations of charioteers. He had heard 
there the made-to-order cheers for the Imperial 
Majesties—everything done by rule, so many cheers 
for the emperor, so many for each member of the 
party—nothing spontaneous. Ek—it was a weari¬ 
ness. He’d not go. But he did, for lack of some¬ 
thing better to do. 

On this visit, Thord Firetooth found the Hippo¬ 
drome filled with a tenseness and a fulsome excite¬ 
ment that was anything but the usual cut-and-dried 
boredom that had oppressed him on other occasions 
there. 

This Hippodrome was a veritable Circus Maxi¬ 
mus, a vast pleasure house over 1300 feet long. Its 
race course was adorned with an Egyptian obelisk 
and priceless statues filched from ancient Greece. 





CONSTANTINOPLE THE GOLDEN 169 


The Kathisma, or imperial box,—actually a small 
palace in itself, with habitable apartments—rose 
above vast tiers of marble seats capable of hold¬ 
ing tens of thousands of Constantinopolitans. 

The curtains to the imperial box were drawn, 
none were occupying it today. But all other seats 
in the Hippodrome were thronged. Thord, from his 
place well down mid-way the tiers, turned and 
looked up behind him. On the ascending seats, back 
to the last one, was a multicolored, swaying mass, 
like bees swarmed thick. Only these were massed 
people, a huge body of spectators, men, women, 
children. Thousands, and thousands! 

Below him stretched more massed heads, then 
the rail above the stone wall, and below that the 
enclosed oblong that served pleasure seekers as 
arena, race-course and place of processions on vari¬ 
ous occasions. Today, it was an arena, thickly 
strewn with wet sand, and cleared for action. 

Laughter, hand-clapping for the show to start, 
a confused multiple murmur full of tenseness beat 
upon Thord’s ears. He had picked up enough Greek 
in his sojourn here to catch the drift of the calls and 
cries—something about a criminal—punishment— 
judgment. 

A trumpet blared loudly, once, twice. A hush of 
expectancy fell upon the crowd. 

Beneath the marble seats, a set of tunnels had 
been built in regular order and with heavy gates 
giving into the long central place. One of these 
gates now opened. Out of the tunnel, attendants 
hauled a cage to the center of the arena. A man 



170 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


stood within the cage. He was prodded out and 
left standing listless, unresistant, while the atten¬ 
dants made good time getting themselves and the 
cage clear of the arena and back within the safety 
of the walls and the gate. 

The concourse swayed, a tremor ran through it, 
a few voices mouthed a word that soon began to 
spread like wild fire. 

“Heretic! Heretic!” The ugly cry became a roar. 
“Heretic! He preached against all our established 
rituals—well, the brotherhoods united for once— 
sat in judgment on him—condemned him! Ek— 
he’ll pay for his loud talk with his life—Look! 
Look!” 

The man down in the arena, black robed, hands 
bound behind, raised his head once, his hood fall¬ 
ing back on his shoulders. 

Nila—the young preacher! Thord’s dulled 
senses came to life with a great shiver. His heart 
seemed to turn over. That Nila, who had preached 
that the Way to God was through love, not ritual! 
And now warring sects had bound his hands, set 
him up as a victim—victim, to what? 

From above the wall, men tugged at a mecha¬ 
nism of pulleys till it lifted a gate set in the stone 
facing below. Safe and high, they had opened an¬ 
other tunnel that led into the arena. Out of this 
dark runway, catapulted a huge, wide-horned bull, 
black, and his hind blackness splotched with red 
where spear points had jabbed maddeningly at 
him through bars to add to his brute temper. Red¬ 
eyed with rage, trumpeting, head lowered as he 





CONSTANTINOPLE THE GOLDEN 171 


paused to gore at the very arena sand, he stood a 
moment before the gate that had clanged down 
shut behind him. 

A mad bull let in to gore a bound victim! How 
could silken-clad people shout in enjoyment at such 
a nithing, dastardly deed! Thord’s heart went sick. 

The victim stood firm, hands tied together, but 
no flinching on his face. Rather a glory. He was 
ready to die for what he preached and believed. He 
had faith anyway. That look—it was like the 
Saxon, like the beloved Father Elkorka. Something 
wonderful burst up in Thord’s heart. There was a 
God, a One True God, if men like that were willing 
to die for faith. Of course, not all men had such 
faith. But to find one man in ten thousand—was 
not that enough? The doubts slipped from Thord. 
Sloth slipped from him too. 

With one movement he was on his feet. He 
fought forward through the dense crowd, thrusting 
a way towards the rail. Voices shouted at him for 
obstructing the view, hands clutched to drag him 
down. His flamboyant purple cape was torn from 
him. So much the better—that left him with limbs 
and arms free. 

Before his looks, his fists, a way parted some¬ 
what. A shove, a wrench of his mighty arm—he had 
snatched away a soldier’s javelin, and flung the 
fellow behind him. 

A leap, and Thord was over the wall and into 
that dreadful arena. “Ehui—I come, to fight for 
you—fight for the White Christ!” 

The bull, done with its pawing and bellowing, 



172 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


stood quivering its ton of bulk into tenseness, ready 
for the trampling charge against that black object 
thrust up before him in the arena. But the leap 
of another object, this one a gaudy target in bright 
saffron, caught his mad gaze and swerved him into 
a charge after this new entrant into the field. 

The grandstand swayed to its feet, burst into a 
long continuous roar. With some it was excite¬ 
ment, va, a contestant for the bull, a real show! 
With others it was a roar of moans, tardy shame 
that only one in this vast concourse should have 
showed pity backed by bravery. 

Thord Firetooth heard nothing of the shouts, 
saw nothing save a black bulk rushing at him, death 
riding those scimitar horns. 

At the first onrush, the Norseman leaped aside, 
and the dealer of death passed him by a fraction, 
wheeled with incredible speed for such bulk, and 
came on the charge again. 

Thord was still panting from that rush through 
the crowds and his plunge over the wall. He had 
fought bulls before, up in the Nord plains. But 
then he had only lived clean, strong, and days 
full of muscular exercise. Now for months he had 
wallowed in wine, sat about in silks, eaten of soft¬ 
ness, not of strength. 

His muscles were not all gone, however. The 
hard living of plow-thrall and oar-slave had left him 
an iron frame beneath all recent softness. As he 
twisted and dodged, sometimes just a hairsbreadth 
ahead of slashing horns and hoof thunder, some of 
his breath came back to him. He was remembering 
to draw in easily, not in sobbing gasps to wrack the 



CONSTANTINOPLE THE GOLDEN 173 


chest. Other cunning came back to him—dodge to 
the left, to be on the heart side of the brute—feint 
with the weapon—make him turn—expose the 
chest—hui, time to thrust, now, before human 
strength wearied entirely! 

With a high lift, and all his strength behind it, 
Thord plunged with the javelin. A sorry weapon— 
or tough bull hide—anyway, the spear haft broke 
in a rotten splintering! Only a puny slash had 
the weapon given, a prick that maddened an al¬ 
ready mad beast. 

Bellowing, it whirled, plunged, bore down upon 
the saffron-clad figure with a piece of broken wood 
in its hands to fend off bloody crushing death. 

Thord’s hands tore at the short knife sheathed 
in his sash. He had hardly gotten it out before the 
black ton of bellowing bull was upon him—a slash 
of horns, a hurtling skywards, a thud to earth! 
Red-rimmed eyes, ponderous head, cruel horns 
thrusting over him! He made one knife thrust, then 
blackness as of suffocation fell upon him. 

Hours later, it seemed, Thord felt many hands 
dragging him forth in wrenching jerks from be¬ 
neath a black bulk that was still warm—but dead, 
and stiffening. “A thrust—to the brain—never saw 
such a bull killing—” Words like these beat upon 
his senses, but he hardly comprehended them. 

Shouts rolled above him. He knew not whether 
they were plaudits or curses. He only knew that 
soldiers were dragging him out of the arena—per¬ 
haps to finish killing him. He, an outlander and 
a stranger, had dared thrust himself, a clog, to 
hinder the workings of their law. 




Chapter XIV 


™ THE WAY TO ROYALTY —— 
HROIJGH the ages, as Constantinople had 



JL grown in wealth and power, it had pleased the 
great city to flatter herself by piling ceremonial 
around the person of her emperor until he had 
grown to be in popular imagination almost a sacro¬ 
sanct character. Like the ancient Egyptian Pha¬ 
raohs—almost a god, and therefore compelled to 
pose as infallable and immutable. 

So great was the sovereign of Constantinople 
that he was a slave to his own greatness! 

In theory he was an autocrat, but in practical 
life he had to comply in every word and movement 
to a set order of “majesty.” His whole existence was 
hedged by a solemn pageantry wherein he played 
a part, and all his officials and populace played 
their parts. 

What his imperial majesty, Basil of Constan¬ 
tinople, wore, what he said, what was said to him, 
all must be done according to rule. When he went 
to bed at night, it was a state function attended 
by lords of this, and lords of that. When his knees 
hoisted the bed clothes of a morning, when his feet 
touched floor, when he stood ready to put on his 
garments—all, all were affairs of state. 


174 




THE WAY TO ROYALTY 


175 


The day before he must needs leave the palace 
reservation—perhaps to visit some out-lying church 
—heralds must go forth to warn the populace to 
sweep and perfume their streets and scatter flowers 
that naught might offend this “divine” sovereign 
of the Romaioi. Always men must prostrate before 
him, always he must wear garments heavy with 
jewels, always a diadem on his head. 

Thord Firetooth, during the months in the great 
city, thought he had seen ultimate splendor. But 
all other splendors that he had seen paled in glory 
by comparison with the richness he passed through, 
as between two soldiers, he marched the palace 
length to appear before the royal tribunal. 

The way to the royal presence was oppressive— 
it lay past chamberlains, past officers of the sword, 
officers of the court, officers of the robes. It lay 
through ten anterooms, each handsomer than the 
last. In various of these were messengers, ambassa¬ 
dors, gold-laced couriers, cooling their heels while 
they waited an audience with his majesty. Here 
stood a turbaned Turk, anxious to lay before Con¬ 
stantinople’s emperor a treaty concerning commerce 
in Moslem lands. Here fumed velvet-capped Geno¬ 
ese sea captains eager to settle matters of the spice 
trade. Here were grouped musicians from various 
courts of Europe, waiting to try their airs on ears 
that were set beneath the most magnificent crown 
on their continent. 

Thord Firetooth, leaning on one soldier because 
of the weakness bred of a horn slash on his hip, 
cast but brief glances on the assembled groups. 




176 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


That hooded musician, the one with the bandaged 
eyes and small harp on his back—he reminded the 
Norseman somewhat of the scalds of the North 
Country, only Norse scalds were pagan and wore 
no hoods and no cross on a monk-like gown. The 
sea captain in velvet caught the prisoner’s eye a bit. 
He cast a small glance at the Turk. Another day all 
of these might have interested him, but today 
Thord Firetooth had the weight on his mind of 
what lay in store for him at the royal tribunal, 
whence he was going, a prisoner, a violater of a 
great city’s public plan of punishment. 

At last his guards clanked him into the final 
sacred recess of royalty, the throne room. Here 
the emperor sat upon a stately seat rich with gems 
and gold, flanked on each side by a golden lion 
couchant. Behind the throne shot up a tree of gold 
in whose branches were flowers and fruits and birds 
of jewels. By some secret mechanism the golden 
lions were made to rise and roar, the tree was made 
to quiver as in a breeze, and the jeweled birds pecked 
at jeweled fruits. It was all very splendid and 
amazing and artificial. 

Thord Firetooth looked, and felt filled with a 
weary repletion of this and all the other golden 
artificialities of the vast city. 

Then his eyes went to the face of the man upon 
the throne. And he shivered. He had expected 
that when he came face to face with the monarch 
swathed in such excessive gilt and glitter, he would 
find that monarch a weakling, mayhap a gentle 
one. Instead, this Basil II had a countenance strong 



THE WAY TO ROYALTY 


177 


and hard, and graven with deep-bitten lines of de¬ 
cision. 

Such a man had the look of being perfectly ca¬ 
pable of dealing with the enemies of his laws, capa¬ 
ble of throwing a prisoner back into that arena of 
the Hippodrome to face for himself a mad bull 
in the place of the one so summarily killed. 

“I know the evidence in your case,” the voice 
of the emperor was as decisive as his looks, “never 
fear, but already any number have legged it to 
me, bringing me many views of the matter. Some 
would have you sainted, some would have you freed, 
some would have you stoned to death. 

“For myself, I can only say that your foolhardi¬ 
ness is at least equaled by your bravery.” The 
emperor paused, turned over the hand-written pages 
of a document. “This reads that we have freed 
the monk Nila from any further persecutions from 
the brotherhoods of the White Cowl and the Gray 
Cowl. We take his sudden expeditious release from 
death in the arena as a sign from Heaven. Since 
yours, Thord Firetooth, was the strong arm that 
saved him, your freedom is yours also.” 

“Free! ” The young Norseman straightened back 
shoulders, drew a deep breath. 

“Yes, freedom certainly should be yours,” went 
on the emperor, “for you and that one called Nila 
have of a surety shown us the free straight Way to 
God in the place of the wilderness of cant and dis- 
sention and schism in which our souls have been 
smothered. Nila the Preacher has been raised to 
a place of honor in the royal chapel. 



178 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


“A king has need also of strong-armed courage 
near him. To you, Thord Firetooth, I would give 
a place of honor in our palace.” 

“I—Sire—” The Firetooth stood stammering. 
His eyes saw now the kindliness that was in the 
stern features of the emperor. His eyes saw also 
the golden glitter which seemed to touch every 
part of the life about him. And for the first time 
in all his stay in glittering, golden Constantinople, 
the Firetooth suddenly knew exactly what he de¬ 
sired to do. 

“For your favor, I have thanks.” Thord knelt 
to kiss the hem of the royal garment, then stood. 
“But, Sire, I am a Norseman, born and bred in 
the North Country. My own land calls to me. I 
would go to that land.” 

No soldier accompanied the Firetooth out of the 
“presence”—a free man, he now stepped forth. 

At the threshold of the throne room, he passed 
the long line of musicians filing in to try their skill 
before royalty. How great was the power of music! 
A scald might wear rags, but had he talent, he had 
entrance into every royal court in the land. It was 
a strange, strong part that musicians played in the 
politics of the world in that age, when travel was 
slow and communication was small between various 
nations. Because a musician had access to every 
court, he brought with him all the latest news— 
and he was always welcome. 

The songs of wandering scalds chanted of the 
beauty of women in various nations, and fired many 




THE WAY TO ROYALTY 


179 


a war of invasion, where young bloods took battle 
as an excuse to have a look at feminine allure. In 
the next century, the songs of scalds were to spread 
through the courts of Europe the news that Holy 
Jerusalem was in the hands of the Infidel—and thus 
music was to fire four great wars of religion, the 
Crusades. 

Right now, the group of musicians filing into the 
throne room of Basil, emperor of Constantinople, 
was as mixed a group of nationalities as ever the eye 
lit upon. A shaggy Russian in a fur mantle strode 
along gripping a crude harp made of a pair of elk 
horns still fastened to their bit of skull bone and 
strung across their tips with gut strings. Here came 
an Italian with his great gold-inlaid instrument of 
two-score strings borne before him by two porters. 
A Greek carried a zither, a Persian, a lute. Fifth in 
line was the tall gaunt fellow with the cross on his 
breast and the three-cornered Norse harp on his 
back. 

Ek—ah! Thord stood staring, rooted, his eyes 
a-bulge. Like one in a sleep-walking, he turned 
back, trailed after the musicians. He could not be¬ 
lieve what he saw. Yet it must be true. That face 
—of course he knew it, now the eye-bandage was 
off. Though that face had not held blind eyes when 
last he had seen it. 

In silent amaze, the Firetooth stood like a man 
of stone while the blind harpist, who by right of 
age was the first to perform, swept hand across his 
harp strings. 

Out across that elegant audience in the golden 





180 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


throne room rolled a wild, weird song, a saga song 
of the Norseland, such a song as Thord had heard 
in his pagan childhood, but different, for this was 
a Christ song: 

From the north have I come, 

Come to tell this tale. 

Christian is all 
The land of Norway 
Under mighty Olaf, 

Olaf son of Tryggye. 

Came the mighty Olaf, 

From the Erin strand; 

With him, priests, 

With him, cross, 

Yea, with him 
Cross of Christ. 

In that sign did 
Olaf conquer. 

Won again his 
Grandsire’s crown, 

Won his people to the cross. 

Now the old gods 
Are forgotten. 

Forsaken now 
Are Frey and Freyja, 

Strong Thor and the 
Angry Grimnir. 

Now, instead, we love 

The Christ 

Love the only God 



THE WAY TO ROYALTY 181 


The Father. 

He is ruler of the earth. 

He is ruler of the sea. 

In his castle in the North, 

Raud the Hawkeye 
Kneels to Christ, 

Kneels there Thora, 

Lovely Thora, 

Thora born of Sigurd. 

I, a wanderer through the nations, 

Seek now Thord, 

Thord the Firetooth, 

Seek Thord to worship 
With us the Christ, 

Thord the son of Sigurd. 

“Hlodver! Hlodver, harper of Sigurd! ’Tis I 
whom you seek, Thord Firetooth, son of Jarl Sig— 
I stand before you! ” screamed the Norseman, leap¬ 
ing forward and clasping his arms about the scald’s 
shoulders. “How traveled you this long, weary way 
—why—why—” 

“Thord! Thord!” The blind man passed a 
loving hand over the other’s head, his features, 
“You ask me why—knowing what I bear here!” 
Hlodver touched his breast. “In the old days, my 
master’s son risked his life to save Hlodver’s child. 
On the castle wall I wrote the rune, ‘Thord saved 
Gisli,’ and I said that same rune was written more 
lastingly in my heart. The castle wall is ashes— 
but the writing in my heart lives—so I have 
sought—” 




182 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


“What a seeking—and you blind—” Thord’s 
voice rose exultingly. 

“Order!” shouted the chamberlains. 

“Order! Order!” blared the officers of the court. 
“Quiet, sirrahs, defame not the emperor’s sacred 
presence with your shouts!” 

“Peace! Let them be!” said His Majesty, lifting 
his scepter. Not often did the world-weary eyes 
of this monarch, hedged in as he was with all the 
hundred gilded pomposities of court, behold such a 
scene of love and dauntless faithfulness. A faith¬ 
fulness that had sought a master’s son across all the 
nations of a continent. 

So there in the golden throne room, Hlodver the 
harper of Sigurd, told much that Thord longed to 
know. How Raud the Hawkeye had found the lit¬ 
tle Thora and raised her as his own. How the 
beautiful maiden was now blooming like a northern 
flower and courted by many a young jarling. How 
Thord’s cousins, Gunna and Torfinn, had gone to 
colonize the new country of Greenland. How Nor¬ 
way was united, one peaceful kingdom under Olaf 
Tryggyson, of the blood of Harald Fairhair, and 
that this King Olaf had won his land to Christ. 

And there in the emperor’s throne room was 
planned the ship that was to bear Thord Firetooth 
of the royal blood of Norway back to his homeland. 



Chapter XV 


BEYOND THE PILLARS OF HERCULES 
O thud of oars and with a strong wind which 



X made the one great square sail a wing of speed, 
a ship swept through the narrow waters that lay 
between the Pillars of Hercules. Behind the ship 
stretched back the whole long length of the Mediter¬ 
ranean Sea. Before the ship, which had now passed 
between the stone crags that ancients had once 
thought held up the sky and marked the end of the 
world’s bounds—before that ship now rolled the 
limitless gray-green of the Atlantic Ocean. 

Wrapped in his leather cloak, Thord Firetooth 
stood upon the loftingen or elevated stern deck, 
filling his lungs with the salt-tanged air, and his 
happiness was so like a bursting song within him, 
that he had no words to say. Not silent was the 
tall old harper who stood beside Thord. Hlodver’s 
fingers swept a soft whisper of melody from his harp 
strings, his voice, low, clear, spoke a rythmic flow, 
expressing thought for the two of them. 


Norway, 0 Norway, 
Sworn to you 
And to the Christ 
Is the sword 
We hold on high. 


183 


184 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


Norway, O Norway, 

Sworn to you 
And to the Christ 
Is our banner 
Of the Cross. 

Norway, O Norway, 

Sworn to you 
And to the Christ 
Our loved ones wait 
On Nordland’s shore. 

Since that day in the golden throne room of the 
Greek emperor of Constantinople, when Hlodver 
the harper had sung of home and Thora and the 
Christ, an unquenchable longing had been fired in 
the breast of Thord Firetooth—a longing to see 
once more the Northland and his kin and to worship 
with them in the kingdom that King Olaf had 
brought to Christ. 

Out of his remaining gold and jewels, he had 
bought this vessel, Sig the Sea Bird , and had 
manned it with seafarers, men who, like himself, 
felt the call of the North. 

In the chests in the hold were gifts he was taking 
home with him. For Thora there were mantles of 
foreign silks embroidered in rich colors and edged 
in gold thread; there were little shoes pricked in 
silver; there was a lofty head-gear of plumes and 
jewels. He kept trying to vision Thora, tall and 
stately, with that head-gear of plumes bound about 
her brow. But ai, his memory played him tricks! 
He could only see a round little childish face, 



BEYOND PILLARS OF HERCULES 185 


mass of pale gold hair caught in a little girl’s netted 
cap, a necklace of bangles about a small fair neck— 
and one bangle missing. Well, that was the way he 
had last seen Thora—and that was the picture his 
mind would hold till his own eyes saw her as the 
full grown maiden she must now be. That missing 
bangle! Thord’s hand reached beneath his tunic, 
touched that same bit of broken gold threaded on 
a leather cord and hung about his neck. That 
broken bangle had gone with him out of the old life 
into the new, and now was going back to the Norse 
homeland with him. 

In other chests were the gifts he was taking home 
to his uncle, the old Jarl Raud, gifts any Norseman 
would crave—robes of the famous Greek purple, 
golden arm-bands of Asiatic-make and cunningly 
carven, a golden door ring, and a something scarce 
ever seen in Norway before—a great blue bowl of 
glass glittering with inlaid figures and with a silver 
band about its top. A bowl of glass would be some¬ 
thing new and precious in old Norway. Thord had 
packed this treasure in a chest to itself and with 
twenty sheepskins wrapped about it to ward off the 
plunge and batter of the sea journey. 

The “loftingen” where Thord stood, was to his 
viking ship what the “poop royal” was to be to 
continental ships two hundred years later. From 
this high stern deck, the Firetooth could look down 
on the figures of his crew, brawny freemen, who 
pulled strong oars to the beat of the gavel in the 
hands of Dag-Halsing, the captain of oars. 

This Dag-Halsing, a Norse rover, land-bound in 



186 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


Constantinople, wearied of a succession of slow 
choppy journeys on round-bottomed Mediterranean 
cargo boats, had welcomed a berth aboard Thord’s 
swift long boat of the real viking type. He might 
once have been blond, but now was tanned to a 
good rich leather hue. A reckless courage showed in 
blue eyes squinted to the perpetual sea glint. He 
was long of body, long of limb, and his long fingers 
seemed equally apt at handling weapon, splicing 
leather tackle rope, or taking a pull at the oar. 

On the bow deck, some helmeted warriors squat¬ 
ted idly, their shields hung on the bulwarks, but 
their spears laid close by. This Sig the Sea Bird 
was a peaceable ship with a golden cross on her prow 
and the cross sign set upon her great vadmal sail, 
but nevertheless, she must bear arms to guard 
herself against the swift murderous pirate barks 
that were prone to dart out of coves and rocky 
fastnesses in island-studded waters to raid and 
sink any unarmed vessel. There was nothing tame 
about sea travel in the year 1001. Standing among 
his soldiers, was Bratta, a big, heavily-built fellow 
all clad in leather, booted, red-bearded, stalwart, 
immense strength in his great body and long arms. 
The very Norse type to be a captain of soldiers. 
Thord had done well to enlist his services. Bratta 
was the kind that decided what was right to do, then 
did it. And he had a good roaring voice too, the sort 
to make his men step out. 

Thord must have inherited a sense of leadership 
from that old leader of men, his father. For like 
Jarl Sigurd, when it came to picking carlsmen and 




BEYOND PILLARS OF HERCULES 187 


henchmen and companions at arms, he was not 
afraid of strong fierce blood. Some inner sense must 
have told him such blood made for staunch friend¬ 
ship in time of need. 

Old Kalmar the pilot was the only officer aboard 
who was not Norse. He was black-eyed, black¬ 
haired, part Greek, part Cretan. And he knew the 
coastline. His long-nosed, long-chinned old face 
had been thrust into most of the ports around the 
edge of Europe. He traveled by a map of his own 
making—a bit of linen cloth much frayed by long 
usage, but still showing clearly in a brownish tracing 
many little conventional signs and curved lines and 
straight lines. All with no meaning to a landsman, 
but full easy for any real navigator of those days to 
follow. 

The blood of generations of Norse sea rovers 
moved in Thord’s veins. For long years, land-life, 
land-wandering, thralldom had held him. Now at 
last, he had come into his own, the sea! Exultation, 
happiness possessed him at crack of sail, thud of 
oar, waves sliding past. Hours each day, he spent 
at the high-curving stern where the pilot stood to 
the steering oar. In those hours old Kalmar taught 
him many things a man needs to know about the 
sea. It gave Thord a great thrill to study little 
twisting brown lines that stood for deep rivers 
emptying into the sea, marked thus upon a map 
made by the hand of man—then to watch his boat 
sail past the mouths of those rivers, precisely as they 
were marked upon the drawing. 

Thord loved the ship itself as though it were 




188 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


alive. In the shipyards at Constantinople, his gold 
had given him a choice of many types of vessels. 
He could have a stout bireme, with double row of 
oars to the side, and a superstructure deck centered 
by the mast. He could have had a two-sailed 
Egyptian craft, with red painted oars and a luxury 
of closed cabins. 

But the Norse hardiness of the slim, open Sea 
Bird took Thord’s heart. He would have no other. 
She had a fifty foot length, or rather say, she 
measured twenty-three and a third Norwegian ells. 
At the bow and stern she was decked, and these 
quarters were fairly raised. Amidships she was low 
and open, and pierced for forty oars, twenty to a 
side. The hold was divided into compartments— 
the “sax,” or store-room; then the “wrap-room” 
where were kept the sail and tackle not in use; then 
the “chest-room” where stood the chests of armor 
and weapons, clothing, tents. Up on the loftingen 
deck rose the usual tilt-boards or framework upon 
which an awning could be stretched at night. But 
Thord stretched no awning. Like his mariners, he 
took the elements intrepidly. They labored, ate, 
slept with nothing but an oar-thwart beneath them 
and sky above them, and a leather bag apiece to 
crawl into if the wind bit too hard of a night. 

At the port of Constantinople, Thord had taken 
on provisions of grain, dried figs, dates, skin bags 
of water. But he had started with no great supply. 
They could replenish along the way. At old Kal¬ 
mar’s experienced urging, he had stocked with a 
moderate supply of Constantinople cloth, metal 



BEYOND PILLARS OF HERCULES 189 


knives, bronze pots—they would be handy to trade 
for food supplies to out-of-the-way coastal folk 
whose primitiveness had little use for coin money. 

Now when the Sea Bird passed through the 
Pillars of Hercules and into the Atlantic Ocean, the 
time of the year was April. It had been winter when 
the ship left Constantinople. For the two months 
past her mariners had pushed forward, now by oars, 
now by oars and sail combined when the wind was 
favorable. Already they had come much more than 
two thousand miles. A far journey, and yet one in 
which they had never at any time been any distance 
from shore. Under Kalmar’s piloting, they had 
skimmed along the coasts, sometimes anchoring on 
the sea for the night, with the stone anchor-weight 
dropped overboard in smooth deep water. Most 
often, however, they stood in at dusk to some beach 
where was watering place of a stream emptying into 
the sea. Kalmar had eyes which detected dent of a 
river mouth here or color of sea that meant safe 
mooring there—when nobody else saw aught but 
a piece of land or a piece of sea. 

Thord Firetooth would be long in forgetting 
those nights spent with his men on sandy beach- 
sloping havens, with the ship drawn to shore, camp 
made, a good cooking smell of roasting meat rising 
to the stars, then a watch set, and a sleeping out in 
the open. 

All along that deeply indented Mediterranean 
coast, there had been many sights to stick in the 
mind. They had touched at country markets where 





190 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


rough-clad upland peasants drove in their goats and 
pigs; had touched at city marts where on the flag 
stones were displayed jars and bowls and amphorae 
from far potteries, where were racks of magnifi¬ 
cently-dyed purple cloth. 

Out on the seas they had often passed slow heavy 
merchant ships convoyed by armed biremes, or 
sometimes triremes. The Sea Bird’s own burnished 
shields on bulwarks had been a sign of arms aboard 
and ability to take care of one’s self—so other ships 
passed them by peaceably. 

It was on the coasts of Spain, I-spana the Greek 
pilot called that country, that a strange night-hap¬ 
pening befell. As Thord’s men landed by a river 
mouth for the night, a fearful shrieking and wailing 
suddenly filled the whole air. It began as something 
far off, but came steadily nearer—squawk, howl, 
sounds as of death and dying and of lost souls wail¬ 
ing after death. It was fearsome. Men held to their 
weapons, rooted to ground. Then out of the dusk 
lumbering forms came nearer—only oxen drawing 
great carts, each with two monstrous solid wheels. 
Ungreased, the wheel hubs shrieked at every turn. 
For all their death-howls, they were only peaceful 
carts hauling grain to shore for a trading on the 
morrow. 

So had gone the Mediterranean trip—nights 
ashore, snug harbors, strong winds, but little of 
storms. 

Now out on the broad Atlantic, sailing was dif¬ 
ferent. Waves rolled mountain-high it seemed. It 
was dip and roll, and crawl out of one trough into 
another. Kalmar still hugged the coast, but seldom 



BEYOND PILLARS OF HERCULES 191 


came into beach for the night. For here was crag- 
lined shore and danger. The Sea Bird stood off, 
except to make a few ports for food and supplies. 
On many of the cliffs were frowning castles, with 
dart-throwing engines of war on their turrets. The 
Sea Bird sailed on with her shields up, but made no 
near approach that might tempt some castle 
catapult to hurl some hundreds of pounds of stone 
at her. 

Out on the Atlantic seaboard and heading north, 
Thord felt that he was now in reality headed for 
home and Norway. Here were storm and cold and 
great waves. Here man-strength battled against 
nature-strength—and it was on to Norway. 

First they headed due north, rarely beaching at 
night, for they were following a coast that was sheer 
and inhospitable. Then they turned to the rising 
sun for a several days’ journey; then again, near a 
range of towering mountains, bent their course 
towards that small constant star which the Greek 
pilot called the Cynosura, the tail of the dog. 

Onward they went, finding that they passed the 
mountains and rivers on this coast precisely as they 
were marked on the pilot’s linen rag map. They 
found, too, that further up on the coast certain 
great rocks, which on the map were marked dan¬ 
gerous, were of a surety dangerous. These were 
strange rocks, honey-combed with caves through 
which winds and waves roared with sounds like 
trumpetings and teeth-gnashing of many huge mon¬ 
sters. 

“The only way to pass here in safety, is seemingly 
to aim straight at death,” said the pilot. “Pull men, 



192 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


pull oars, head straight at the great rock itself!” 

Pull! Pull! The ship caught in eddying cur¬ 
rents, hurled this way, hurled that way—and yet 
the oars and rudder bent on sending her straight 
against the grinding rock. Men paled beneath their 
leathery tan, fearful muscles slacked at the rowing. 
It was death—death—to row on thus. 

“Row! Row straightly—” Thord was off the 
loftingen, among the oar thwarts, sword in hand to 
back the orders of the pilot. “Row! Row!—or 
die!” His officers, Dag and Bratta were with him, 
swords in hand. “Row! Row!” 

Men rowed. Oars lifted, fell. The ship swung 
straight through waters that boiled and eddyed in 
fierce currents, swung straight at the great rock. 
Then the whirlpool on the left—as experienced old 
Kalmar knew it would—caught the ship just in the 
nick of time, sucked it to the left of the death rock 
into a narrow channel, spewing it forth into the 
open sea where was safety, save that the waves here 
ran mountain-high. Even as ship and exhausted 
men shot into safety, one last licking wave curled 
over the ship’s edge and swept Dag-Halsing, the 
oar-captain, out-board to drop him choking, 
strangling into the sea. Gone—except for a hand 
that shot out, seized his leathern tunic. Then the 
owner of the hand, Thord Firetooth, near went to 
his death in the sea, too, save only that Bratta and 
two sailors grabbed his legs, and finally hauled the 
two of them back from death. 

After that, the ship’s rowers fell to pulling again 
and made it on to a calmer sea where the wind- 




BEYOND PILLARS OF HERCULES 193 


howlings of the sea-caves drifted fainter and fainter 
into the distance and were then lost all together. 

On into the north went the voyage, endlessly, it 
seemed. The markings on the linen map continued 
though to tally with the indentures on the wild 
coast. And the markings showed too that they 
were nearing the end of the journey. Only a little 
more now, and they would have achieved it—this 
half a circle around Europe’s coasts! 

A few days before, as the map drawing had al¬ 
ready noted for them, they had passed through a 
long stormy channel with a rocky line of cliffs on 
the right and a chain of jagged islands on the left. 
Thence they had steered boldly northward into 
open sea. Northward, ever northward, and the land 
on the right of them, and the sea air in the nose 
bringing to Thord Firetooth more and more a 
sense of coming into the homeland. 

They were on the shores of Norway, but still go¬ 
ing north and ever north. Thord Firetooth’s heart 
seemed to beat into his very throat for excitement. 
His home country—not seen for years—the beauty 
of it! He felt witched, charmed, softened in his very 
manhood. Even in his heartsick dreams and long¬ 
ings through the years, he had not known how 
deeply his country’s beauty could touch him. 
Majesty of towering mountain, incut of blue sea, 
woodlands, vales. The white spring mists like soft 
filmy veils floating over rock and fen and fjord. 
Tender green just lining the shore. Clouds like 
silky sails on high. 

The ship went on to the north, past the long 




194 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


indenture that was Nord Fjord, Thord’s old home 
place where were ashes instead of a castle, on past 
cliffs where had once been temples to the sun god, 
on and on towards Oster Isle where were now all 
his kin, Jarl Raud and Thora and the castle home. 

Then Oster Isle loomed ahead. Thord was on fire 
to sight the Hawkeye’s castle on the heights, but 
the mists that had fluttered before, now closed down 
into a soft white blanket of fog. 

Slowly, carefully, the pilot eased the ship into 
the islet’s harbor and on to the shore. Oarsmen 
laid their oars in the lockers. The pilot held the 
great steering paddle to rest. But the crew kept to 
their places, waiting, to let the young Norseman 
be first to set foot on his own shore. 

Deep in Thord’s heart was a great stirring. He 
had left homeland, a pagan. He was coming back 
to that land, a follower of the White Christ, enter¬ 
ing now a homeland turned to Christ. 

He leaped to land, his great crimson, cross- 
crowned banner in his hand. That banner had 
traveled with him this long way. He must first 
plant it here, then go on to seek his kindred. 

“Norway, O Norway,” came Hlodver’s voice, 
chanting the last lines of the Wander Saga he had 
made throughout all this journey to the homeland. 

Norway, O Norway, 

Come we now 
With humble hearts 
Won to Christ 
By His sign, 

[The Cross divine. 




“Norway, O Norway, }> came Hlodver’s voice, chant 
ing the last lines of the Wander Saga. 




















BEYOND PILLARS OF HERCULES 197 


Into Thord’s ears poured the blind harper’s chant, 
like a consecration on the sacred banner that now 
stood on Norway’s soil. 

Then to Thord came another sound, a screech of, 
“Oh, master, young master—” and with it an 
ancient creature came hobbling out of the under¬ 
brush above the shore. 

“Hide it, hide it,” babbled the old one. Thord 
knew her well. She was Tyra, one time a serving 
woman of Jarl Raud’s household. “Hide it, ere 
they kill you for it, as they are killing all of us!” 
She tore at the cross-crowned banner, dragging it 
down, thrusting it beneath her rags. 

Into Thord’s ears, she poured her horror tale. 
Great Olaf, Norway’s king of the White Christ, was 
dead, slain at the Battle of Svolder. In his stead 
now ruled the pagan jarls, Erik and Sweyn. Under 
them the land had gone back to the old bloody gods 
and the horse sacrifice, and Christian men, too, had 
had their throats slit on the sacrificial stone to bring 
good crops—so the jarls said— 

“But Thora, my sister,” Thord burst out. 
“Where—” 

“Ai. Thora, gone—gone, like the rest of the 
Christians, like our master, Raud!” wept the old 
one, rocking back and forth in her misery. “Be¬ 
cause of her white beauty, pagan Sweyn wanted her 
to wife. But she fled in the night, dressed coarsely, 
like some peasant wench. Gone she is, to that far 
new land, called Greenland, gone on the colonizing 
ship—gone—” 

Thord Firetooth stood staring before him, 





198 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


blankly, frozenly, the very life-blood seeming to 
drain from his heart. 

What a home-coming for one who had traveled 
around all the shores of Europe—a home-coming 
to a Norway that killed the followers of the White 
Christ! 




Chapter XVI 


— ACROSS THE SEA —- 

I N mid-summer of the year 1001, a ship set forth 
from the shores of Norway, heading out across 
the dark cold waters of the North Atlantic. Upon 
her high-pillared stern deck stood a tall figure, clad 
in rough leather buskin and hose of skin, gazing 
sadly back at the dimming shores of Norway— 
Norway, his Norway, that he, Thord Firetooth, 
was leaving, perhaps forever! 

The pull of blood kin was strong. It was drawing 
Thord Firetooth away from his homeland and on 
across an ocean to seek his sister and his father’s 
brother among the colonists gone on to that strange, 
new-found land called Greenland. In that year 
many persecuted Christians had fled Norway, will¬ 
ing rather to face danger in far Iceland, and farther 
Greenland than to turn back to paganism. And 
now Thord the Firetooth was sailing on to cast in 
his lot with these persecuted ones. 

Despite his urgency to be gone, Thord had been 
forced to spend weeks of the precious summer 
weather preparing for this journey. Preparations 
had been, of necessity, slow and dangerous in this 
Norway that was torn by civil strife, in this Nor- 

199 




200 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


way where pagan hunted down Christian. By 
patient secret labor, Thord finally filled the Sea Bird 
with food sacks and water skins. Close-sewn 
leather containers of barley meal were stored even 
beneath the very rowing thwarts, neatly, so that 
they did not hamper the men at the oars. All man¬ 
ner of north country food was packed into the hold 
—hard brown bread and hard goat’s cheese, dried 
fish in bales, strips of cured reindeer meat. Also 
there were bales of cloth, bales of leather, extra 
ship’s gear, fish spears, hunting spears—a hundred 
things that had not been needed on that long trip 
from Mediterranean shores to Norway. 

This was a far different voyage the Sea Bird was 
now attempting. That other journey had been 
long, arduous, all of four thousand five hundred 
miles, but it had hugged coastlines, never far from 
land where food and water could be replenished. 

Now they were undertaking to cross the whole 
ocean, with weeks, months, perhaps a year of travel 
before them ere they ever found that new country, 
Greenland. True, other ships had reached Green¬ 
land, had carried hardy settlers there. But each 
voyage across uncharted ocean, without maps or 
compass, must be in truth a voyage of discovery— 
for each ship must discover for itself the land that 
lay on the other side of the world. 

Along with other preparations, Thord had had to 
pick anew almost a whole ship’s force. His sailors 
who had come up the edges of Europe with him, 
were good men and brave, but they were bred to 
coast-sailing and chose rather to take ship with 




ACROSS THE SEA 


201 


traders heading back down south than to plunge 
forth on such an uncharted voyage. Even the 
ancient Kalmar said he was too used to piloting 
ships by his rag of linen map to try other sailings 
now in his late years. But there was wistfulness in 
Kalmar’s long-nosed, long-chinned old face as he 
parted company with Norse Thord for whom he 
had a real friendship. Ai, a few years less of painful¬ 
ness in his old bones, and he too might have joined 
an adventure across a whole ocean! 

For Kalmar’s place at the steer pole, Thord 
finally secured one Helgi, a red-bronze, hook-nosed 
Norse pilot, who already had made trips across the 
sea to the new world. This Helgi had no chart. 
How was one to chart an ocean! But he knew the 
one fixed beam of a star, that same star Cynosura, 
the tail of the dog, of the Greeks, but called North 
Star by Norse helmsmen. He knew only to keep the 
North Star on his right and to sail always into the 
west. Thus he had thrice crossed the North At¬ 
lantic, and thrice had miraculously come to Green¬ 
land. 

Out of his old crew, Thord’s two Norse officers, 
Bratta and Dag-Halsing, were still faithful. To 
them he added by degrees picked rowing men and 
soldiers, Ulf, Ulra, Inge, and other brawny, blond 
Norsemen who dared venture into the unknown— 
the sea was of a certainty in their blood—and who 
were willing to follow the Cross of the White Christ 
across an ocean. 

What an undertaking that was! Fifty-eight men 
to cross the Atlantic in a Viking boat—oar power, 




202 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


one sail, and most of the ship open to the weather! 
For all her stout beams of riveted oak, the Sea Bird 
seemed but as a cockle-shell tossed in the surging 
swell of the mighty waves. How she rolled! Men 
stood on their feet one minute and were down the 
next. Once in so often, green water swept over the 
between-decks drenching everything in sight. 

Men rowed strongly, bend and pull, bend and 
pull, in time to the blind harper’s stirring sweep 
of music from up on the boards of the loftingen. It 
was a brave start. All day long the steady thud¬ 
ding oars bore westward, hurling the ship through 
high-flung waves that broke into glittering spray 
on either side. 

A calm sunset found them far out on an empty 
sea. A strange feeling that—night dropping down, 
and no land anywhere for men to beach a ship 
upon, nor for themselves to crawl upon for a sleep, 
as was familiar habit. That night the rowers slept 
huddled in their leather bags, restless with the 
mighty heave of waves against oak planking be¬ 
neath them. Wind against the sail bore the ship on, 
cutting through black waves, leaving a phosphores¬ 
cent foam path trailing back across the sea. Thord 
Firetooth, from close association with old Kalmar 
on the long up-coast journey, had gathered suf¬ 
ficient piloting lore to be able to rest Helgi at the 
steering oar. Ulf stood watch on the little raised 
platform of the forward deck. Upon the right of 
the voyagers, the small fixed gleam of their guide 
star shone bright amid a multitude of other stars. 

The wind of the night increased, and by morning, 




ACROSS THE SEA 


203 


the ship was moving forward under a gray-black 
sky with tatters of cloud streaming across it. All 
that day the wind whipped the seas till the vessel 
could only wallow heavily from wave trough to wave 
trough. The third day brought rain, ferocious, 
blinding, a shrieking gale, with the clouds low-hung 
almost to the waters. It took two men to the steer¬ 
ing oar, and between the rowing thwarts, men 
bailed desperately to keep clear of the water which 
came over the gunwale in sheets of spray. Two 
water jars broke. Some skins of food became loose 
and washed overboard. Wetness and gloom every¬ 
where. Dank, salt-crusted leather garments clinging 
to men’s weary bodies at every move. 

Then sunshine again, dazzle of blue sea to lift 
the spirits! Naught but a breeze in the sail, but 
oars moved now to a vigorous chantey. So went 
the round of wind and weather. Days became 
weeks, and still the cockle-shell of oak planks 
riveted together crept on across the ocean. 

Birds began to be sighted again, a multitude of 
gulls and even a black raven or so that perched 
cawing on the mast pole. The ship made a slight 
dip to the south and came to the Faroe Islands, as 
Helgi knew it should. Here was a chance to stretch 
limbs, take on water and add a bit of fresh fish to 
the ship’s stores. There was little else which the 
few inhabitants of these narrow isles could offer. 

After that it was to sea again. No more land now 
until they sighted the bottom of the great island 
of Iceland—which was as far from the Faroes, as 
the Faroes were from Norway—and after that, no 




204 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


land at all till they reached their destination, Green¬ 
land in the New World. 

But it came about that they never even sighted 
that Iceland, as Helgi had expected. With the Faroe 
Islands weeks behind them, the ship entered into 
a zone of early autumn storms. Tempest succeeded 
tempest, battering and buffeting. Then the king 
storm of them all descended, violent, terrible, the 
sea a ravening monster reaching wave-slashings 
over the very decks seeking to snatch off puny 
humans who dared ride a ship thus far from any 
land. Oars were as naught in that storm. The 
tall mast quivered in its wedge-tightened socket at 
the screaming wind fury that nigh tore the sail from 
its cross yard. Men fought at the whipping ropes, 
tautening, knotting, holding the very sail in place 
by main strength. It was their only hope, that sail, 
to keep them racing before the storm too fast for 
the over-leaping waves to swamp and sink the little 
ship. On they went, wallowing in this trough, 
crashing through that trough, four men at a time 
clinging to the steering oar to keep the vessel from 
broaching broadside to the sea. By day they raced 
across a sea which was a boiling whiteness of up- 
reared crests, and by night was a boiling blackness. 
Two nights and two days of smashing through a 
confused sea, with no longer any idea of their 
whereabouts. Then with the going down of the 
sun, the wind died and the wave heights gradually 
lowered into a calm sunset path that stretched be¬ 
fore them. 

As the heavens cleared, there shone the North 



ACROSS THE SEA 


205 


Star on their right hand, as it should be. But weeks 
of sailing never brought them to any land as was 
expected. The waters in which they rode were 
warm. They could see no white line to the north¬ 
ward that could mean the down-edging of the 
autumn ice-rim to which they were all accustomed. 
They were storm-blown so far to the south that 
who could tell where they were heading? 

During the long voyage, the sameness of food 
had become a weariness. No more fresh fish like 
that taken aboard at the Faroes, no reindeer meat 
except that which was mouldy. Even the hard 
goat’s cheese went sour and the bread was soggy. 

But now provisions began to give out, shrunk to 
half-fare, grew less and less, and down to one scant 
meal a day. And men looked back with longing 
hunger toward that erstwhile sour cheese and soggy 
bread. Then water began to run low. In a fear of 
thirst, madness broke out among the mariners. 
Their Christ religion slipped from them, for they 
were very new Christians. There on the deeps the 
old heathen beliefs came back. Men whispered that 
during the storm they had seen angry Ran, himself, 
the old sea god, monstrous, black, his hair the gray 
mists, his beard the spume—the god himself driving 
his white sea coursers over the storm. This ship 
now—it had come too far into Ran’s water kingdom, 
the sea god was luring them on, waiting to drag 
them all down into the under-sea where Ran’s 
daughters made sailors’ bones into sea shell and 
their hair into sea weed. 

Other frightened mutterings went the rounds of 



206 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


the oar-benches. The ship had come so far, that to 
keep on meant to drop off the edge of the world. 
See now, they had already passed beyond the chains 
of the winds. For not even a breeze lifted their 
limp vadmal sail. At the end of the drinking water, 
the madness of mutiny broke into full storm. The 
oarsmen rose, surged towards the loftingen and the 
steer-pole that stood behind it, shouting hoarse, 
croaking threats toward this Thord who had lured 
them out on the edge of shoreless oceans to die. 
“Home—Norway—turn about—or we’ll turn about 
that rudder for you—” 

And Thord Firetooth, as gauntly hunger-wracked 
as any, had leaped from the loftin, unarmed, save 
for his fist, and had thrust them back, knocking the 
spokesman down among the empty barley bags, 
standing forward, daring any other to make steps 
towards the steering gear. Muttering, men went 
back to their oars. 

Then Thord was among them, his arm about 
Rowman Inge whom he had had to knock down, and 
Thord’s words had a calm saneness to them. 

“Rather give thanks to the One God who has 
brought you through such storm as no man yet ever 
triumphed over before, and rather say prayers to 
the One God to bring us on yet to land.” He waved 
a hand behind him, “See, the months of ocean 
stretch behind us. We could never turn back and 
live to cover that again. To go forward is all we 
can do—to go forward, and pray.” 

And what a going forward it was! Faithful 
Bratta and Halsing took their turn with Thord to 




ACROSS THE SEA 


207 


watch the weapon chest and to stand guard over 
Helgi at the steer pole to save him from violence, 
should the hunger madness strike the crew again. 

On over a glassy sea of vivid blue, with no wind 
to help, men rowing feebly, their tongues black and 
swollen in dry mouths! The last water had been 
drunk two days gone. Every man on board took his 
feeble turn at the oars, even blind Hlodver helping 
on the bench before Thord, bending when Thord’s 
croak said, “Bend!” 

Pull the oar, pull the oar, and the horrible fear 
of thirst-death squeezing men’s hearts dry and 
drier! 

So it went through a windless day of striving, 
with parched throats too dry even for moaning. 
Then Halsing from the prow, let out wild unearthly 
croakings, waving his lank arms about, pointing on 
ahead. There on the horizon was a dark irregular 
blur that meant land! 

Somewhere from beneath their exhaustion, men 
got strength. Oars dipped, not fast, but with a 
regularity. Thord Firetooth’s gaunt arms set a 
pace. Old Hlodver in an oddly cracked voice, held 
men to that pace with the heartening of a rowing 
song, and the brave clash of music rolling out from 
his harp, like waves rolling happily to land. 

Through the windless, mid-day heat, the ship 
crept nearer and nearer to land. On the right a 
towering headland thrust itself out in front of a 
yellow-beached, curving bay. Thord’s ship slowly 
skirted the cliffs, entered the bay, went on into the 
mouth of a great river that emptied here, then drew 



208 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


to shore among reeds where wild fowl whirred up¬ 
ward. 

Land! Earth underfoot! Water! 

Men flung themselves face downwards in the mud 
of the banks of a stream that wound through the 
reeds to empty into the river. They drank, choking 
and gasping with the urgency of their thirst. Some 
slept from exhaustion there where they had first 
dropped at the blessed damp edge of fresh water. 
Some rolled in the shade of great trees, rested, came 
back to drink again their fill of water. 

The ship, Sea Bird , had come to shore, but not to 
the shore of Greenland. Helgi, who had thrice vis¬ 
ited the long coast of Greenland with its rock moun¬ 
tains and ice rivers and frost-stunted forests no taller 
than the height of a man, knew full well that this 
verdantly wooded country was not the land for 
which they had steered across an ocean. Here were 
no sturdy towns of Norse colonists, here was no 
traffic of Norse long-boats up and down the coast. 

No, ’twas not Greenland, but ’twas a good land. 
It offered foods of many kinds—leaping salmon in 
the river waters, spicy-tanged grapes growing black 
and luscious on forest vines, a new kind of grain 
growing wild among the river edges. 

Here the Sea Bird was drawn to shore for repairs. 
Here an encampment was made. And at nights, by 
their fires, the Norsemen pondered where it could 
be that they had landed. 

“By my arm band,” said the hooked-nose, red- 
haired Helgi, “I know this is not Greenland! And 
’tis not the land just to the west of Greenland—Hel- 



ACROSS THE SEA 


209 


luland—the Place of Flat Stones—that is called. 
I voyaged there once with our fleet seeking timber. 
Nor can this be Bear Island down to the south of 
Greenland, for I have been there too. This, of a 
truth, must be Bjarni’s land—” 

“Hola, yes,” burst from Thord Firetooth, as he 
leaped up to tramp excitedly back and forth before 
the camp fire. “This must be the land of great trees 
and great rivers glimpsed once by Bjarni, son of 
Herjulf! That was back in the days of my own 
childhood. This Bjarni glimpsed a great fair land 
once, then never in all his sailings could find it 
again.” 

This land of Bjarni’s glimpsing, this land that 
Thord and his Norseman had now come into, was 
America. Here on American soil in the year 1001, 
Thord the Firetooth planted his crimson banner 
crowned with the cross, and around that banner a 
little settlement grew up. 

After new timbers had been set into the storm- 
wracked framing of the Sea Bird, and after sail and 
oars had all been put in order, the Norsemen, twice 
in that autumn, tried to sail North where they be¬ 
lieved the Greenland Colony to be. But each time 
the ice drift in the northern sea path sent them back 
to the south. 

So the new land claimed Thord and his ship¬ 
mates for a winter. The huts they built were rough 
affairs, mere fenced places made by driving sharp¬ 
ened posts into the ground and setting cross-pieces 
above, whereon were laid boughs, then a covering of 
grass and earth. But in spite of their crudity, they 



210 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


were homes. And with the building of them an 
aspect of civilization settled upon this corner of the 
land. 

Sound of grinding filled the air. Then men used 
their empty barley bags to bring in great loads of 
the wild grain growing ripe and yellow along the 
river bottoms. This grain they pounded between 
stones and baked into the hard round cakes of the 
North Country. 

Thord and his spearmen brought in meat of deer, 
and occasionally bear meat. Salt from the rock 
crevices where the ocean water evaporated, herbs, 
dried grapes—these made a pleasant contrast to 
the monotonous diet endured through the months 
of crossing the ocean. 

When the winter was nearly over, the Norse set¬ 
tlement had a visit from a savage horde that 
swarmed down forest waterways in skin boats and 
camped in skin tents along the shore. They were 
a coppery-hued people, clad in the pelts of the 
beaver and the fox, and bearing for weapons, slings 
and stone hatchets. But for all their ferocious 
aspect of ugly hair and paint-daubed features and 
broad cheek bones, they seemed peaceful enough, 
and chiefly desired to trade peltries and gray furs 
for the curiosities of the white man. 

Bratta traded one of his spears and a cloth tunic 
for a great shaggy robe made all of the skin of one 
animal. It was from a bison, and had a hide such 
as had never been seen by any Norseman. Thord’s 
trading was for a store of rich beaver skins—he had 
a robe for his sister in mind. Knives of stone, 



ACROSS THE SEA 


211 


hatchets of stone, grain in great gourds, all manner 
of dried meat, and a quantity of peltries, these the 
copper-colored people traded to the Norsemen for 
lengths of cloth and pieces of metal which seemed 
very precious to the savages. 

In the early spring, the savages came for another 
trading, then they came no more. They had been 
passing north at the time, and had evidently gone 
on to their hunting grounds. 

A little later that spring, the white men them¬ 
selves went north. A wild looking crew were Thord’s 
Norsemen, with their worn tunics patched with wild 
animal skins and about their shoulders shaggy 
mantles of bear hide and wolf hide. But their ship 
was well conditioned, and had a wealth of food and 
furs stored in her hold. 

In the mild spring weather, the land where they 
had wintered had stretched out many lures to hold 
their interest—the lure of deeper penetration back 
into the wonder strand of great rivers, great forests, 
wild-growing vines and grain. But blood-ties and 
the longing to find their kin in the Greenland Col¬ 
ony drew Thord and his men on to voyage into the 
north as soon as the ice line cleared from the sea. 

To go north was all they knew to do. After a 
week of sailing, a turn of the coast sent them east¬ 
ward for many days, following the land curve. 
Then they were free of land and with naught but 
water above them as far as the eye could see. 

A wonderful voyage that was! Sailing always to 
the north, past many islands—one was Great Bear 
Island, Helgi was sure—past a long coast that 



212 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


slanted west, by north-west, the flat stone land of 
Hellu. From spring till into summer, they sailed 
north. Then far away in the mists a great blur 
showed on the horizon. That must be the Green¬ 
land they sought. But between them and it, a cur¬ 
rent laden with masses of broken ice now swept 
down from the north and turned west. 

That ice pack on the sea meant a late summer for 
Greenland, so Helgi said. He had seen it thus once 
before in another year. Instead of sailing on 
towards the southernmost point of the land before 
them, the pilot turned the ship towards the west 
and moved north on the edge of the ice-laden cur¬ 
rent. From experience, Helgi knew a deal about that 
drift ice—knew that for most of the year it swept 
down on the east coast and across the south coast 
of Greenland, only to melt in a strangely warmer 
current that was on the west coast. For this reason, 
all the colonies were set upon the deeply indented 
west shores of Greenland. 

Greenland! What a name! Thord shivered. As 
the ship approached the land mass, all one saw was 
the white glare on mountains sheathed in ice and 
snow. 

Then drawing in closer, one did see green land, a 
low coast stretching back in meadows, now faintly 
touched with early summer green against the brown 
earth. Darker green showed in patches. Trees— 
little alders and birches and pines, not five feet tall. 
A forest here was not higher than a man could look 
over. 

Helgi was bringing the ship towards land in a 




ACROSS THE SEA 


213 


little vik, or inlet, where houses were built round the 
shore, houses stretching back inland. A whole 
town. There must be near half a hundred buildings. 
Brattalid! They were sailing into Brattalid where 
Thora awaited them and Jarl Raud! A tower 
lifted a little above other buildings on the shore. 
On the harbor waters showed some ship masts. 
Then mists came drifting in between the watchers 
on board the Sea Bird , cutting off the view. 

“Remember, young master, our plan—the plan 
we spoke of back yonder by the camp fires in the 
land of great trees!” Old Hlodver, his harp on his 
back, stood by Thord on the forward deck, touch¬ 
ing him on the arm. 

Thord remembered that plan. During the long 
winter nights when Brattalid seemed far away, he 
had laughingly agreed to a whimsy of the harper 
that had to do with making himself known to his 
kin after all these years of separation. 

Now with these kin so near at hand, Thord’s chief 
desire was to rush into port, rush through the town 
seeking out those dear ones. But the old harper’s 
touch was pleading. With a little sigh, the young 
wanderer agreed that matters should be as the old 
one had planned. 

So in the harbor mists, the Sea Bird did not come 
up to the landing alongside other ships, but instead 
edged down the bay and drew up to shore behind the 
promontory. Sheltered here, Thord and the blind 
harper left the ship, only these two taking to shore 
and on foot heading off across the intervening 
heights into town. They were both muffled, brow 



214 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


and chin, in hooded mantles with the sign of the 
cross on their breasts. The one bore his harp on his 
back, the other was burdened with a pack bag. 

This Brattalid Town into which they came 
tramping stirred Thord with the Norse look of its 
low-built comfortable stone houses, snug stone 
walls of cattle byres, stone walls of a spreading 
building with a cross on its sturdy square tower. 
On the shore front were the usual array of Norse 
fish racks—but no fish were drying upon them— 
spread here were only some shreds of withered kelp 
and sea weeds. 

A neat town this, but so silent. No lowing of cat¬ 
tle in the byres; no cackle and cluck of fowl; so 
little of life and movement anywhere. A few 
pinched-face men in furs moved slowly down the 
street. A couple of thin, shrewish-looking children 
fighting over a strip of leather, which the stronger 
one snatched away to thrust into his mouth to go 
to chewing upon. 

“Sir, tell us the way to the house of Jarl Raud?” 
asked Thord of the next man they met. 

The fellow’s mouth drew down sourly as he bent 
his gaze upon this pair of cross-signed strangers. 
“Second house, there,” he jerked a thumb to the 
left. “The one with the ivory on the door post.” 

Before that ivory-set entrance, Thord Firetooth 
stood, heart beating high, excitement making his 
hand tremble till he could hardly thud the door ring 
against the wooden slab. He heard slow footsteps 
within, the lift of the door-bar—then the heavy door 
swung in. 



ACROSS THE SEA 


215 


Excitement was in Thord’s limbs now. He could 
scarce step over the threshold into his uncle’s home. 
He felt Hlodver pressing against him, shoving him 
forward. 

Now—he stood in the house of Jarl Raud Hawk- 
eye! Low walls of stone it had, like all the houses 
in this land of stone and no timber. Low walled, 
but what a richness here! Wall hangings and rugs 
of thick furs. Everywhere, carved ivory pieces for 
decoration. No hearth, but a strange low vessel of 
hollowed stone holding a little oil and having lighted 
wicks of twisted moss laid along its edges. These 
wicks gave forth a soft yellow glow that lighted a 
tall old man, bearded, gaunt of frame in loose fur 
robes, lighted the face of a girl with great blue eyes 
and the delicate fairness of the north rose,—but 
such a wan paleness. She had been turning the 
wheel of her spindle, making thread out of a twist 
of dark fur. 

She stood now, as also stood the old man, 
courteous, giving strangers the high seat, the best 
seat, next to the warmth of the fire-bowl. 

“Brothers of the Cross, welcome,” spoke the old 
Jarl. “You have come to a sad place, but whatever 
we have, we divide with you.” 

He was so like Jarl Sigurd, tall, stately, with a 
strong level gaze to his blue eyes. 

Thord felt a great rush of happiness surging up 
within him. Here, at last, he was with his own kin! 
His uncle, his sister! It was Thora, herself, who 
was handing him the silver platter with food upon 
it—but such a tiny morsel of food, and strange 




216 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


tasting, like some sea plants kneaded into a bread. 
Why such food—why such paleness on every face 
one met here—why—? 

But Hlodver had begun to touch the harp, softly, 
questioningly, letting the strings ask for him the 
harper’s immemorial right to tell in song what other 
men had to speak out about themselves in plain 
words. 

“That is right, bard, speak to us in music and 
tell us the tale of yourself and your companion,” 
said the old Jarl. 

Hlodver again touched the strings of his instru¬ 
ment. This was the consummation of the plan that 
had been in his heart throughout all these wander¬ 
ings across an ocean and up a continent—the plan 
which he in his harp-song should reveal to Thord’s 
kindred that this was their wanderer come home to 
them. 

Softly the harp twanged, softly rolled out 
Hlodver’s rich mellow voice, telling in strong, rude 
verse his saga song that had been growing through 
the years. He sang the story of a young Norse 
wanderer, battle, pirates, the selling into slavery, 
thralldom in Germany, wild life with the Huns, 
wealth, the touch of the Christ in the wanderer’s 
heart, golden Constantinople; sang of a Norseman 
that risked his life for Christ in the arena; sang of 
a Norseman that brought the cross banner across 
an ocean; sang of a bit of broken rune bangle that 
had gone through life with this Norseman— 

That bangle! But even as Thord was drawing 
the bit of gold on its cord from under his tunic, the 



ACROSS THE SEA 


217 


girl leaped to her feet, ran to a chest against the 
wall, drew out of silken wrappings a childish neck¬ 
lace of rune bangles, with one bangle missing. 

“Is it—can it be—the lost Thord, you chant 
of—” 

Thord tore off his mantle, flung back his hood, 
stood holding out the little missing bangle in his 
hand. It fitted the space in the broken necklace. 

“Thord!” 

“Thora!” 

It was all they could say at the first. A brother 
and a sister, their lives separated by years, separated 
by half the lands and waters of the world, and now 
those lives joined again! Later would come the 
many words, the telling of all. 

Thord, Thora, Jarl Raud, old Hlodver softly 
touching his harp strings—these four out of all the 
crowded splendid days of the life in old Norway— 
these four brought together in this far land, with 
the sign of the Christ in their hearts! 

“My uncle!” Thord stretched out his hands. 
“My sister, what tales you yourselves have to 
tell—” 

But it was a telling left untold. 

The door of Raud Hawkeye’s house crashed 
open. A mob of haggard-faced men poured into 
the low-walled room. 

“Kark Lakka!” The two words burst from 
Thora, as she stood away from the fierce-eyed man 
in the lead. 

Kark Lakka began to speak in a loud hoarse 
voice. “The Old Gods have sent us the famine-sign 



218 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


—the sign of their anger against men turning from 
them. The Old Gods must be appeased, or we all 
die of hunger sickness! Be done with this White 
Christ! Come back to the old strong gods of blood 
and war—” 

“No—no!” It was a four-fold answer rolling as 
one sound from the lips of the four grouped back 
against the high-seat. 

“Ehui! The ropes! Bind them, men! If they 
cannot pray to the Old Gods, they can die as sacrifice 
to them!” Kark’s hoarse shouts rose above the 
turmoil of the mob closing in on its victims. “Blood! 
The Old Gods cry for blood! Blood shall pour on 
the altar stone!” 

Terrible famine stalked the length and breadth 
of the colony. No birds had come to Greenland in 
this year of the great cold. No fish in the seas, no 
seal and walrus on the shore ice! No food left any¬ 
where now, only the hunger horror creeping, creep¬ 
ing over the land—the hunger madness that made 
beasts of men, turning them back to bloody pagans! 

Down in a dark little underground room, the 
four bound prisoners lay waiting the hour of their 
sacrifice. Voices sounded chill and unreal. Silence 
cut each prisoner off to himself. 

Thoughts clashed through the Firetooth’s mind. 
He had sailed for glory—had landed to a shame 
death! So easy—he could save himself—a call to 
the jailer tramping out there—just some words, 
“HI pray to Odin—hola—let me out! ” Christ help 



ACROSS THE SEA 


219 


him be strong! Oh, but those few easy words— 
only to say them—and hold to life! 

Darkness—bonds cutting into flesh! 

What meant that turmoil? Was it already day— 
the day of death! Tramping feet! Tramping feet! 

“They come!” Each prisoner gasped it. 

Thord writhed against his bonds, beat his head 
against cold stone. His whole life seemed to flash 
before him in the moment of his doom. It had 
seemed easy to have fought the mad bull for Christ 
and to save Nila. Easy to have said after Elkorka, 
“I believe in the One God!” But now— 

Grind—crash—tramp! They were coming to 
take him as a sacrifice. 

To stand passive—to die a shame death, hewn 
down on the stone—“Strength, God give me 
strength!” Even in that instant, the meaning of 
faith stood out in glory before him. As Elkorka’s 
blood had converted him, Thord, so might his blood 
convert another. Glory and a white light uplifted 
him. He was strong now unto death! 

The wall above the Firetooth quivered to a great 
impact, burst open, pieces of rock falling every¬ 
where. 

Hands dragged at Thord, hauling him through 
a jagged breach, something fell against his head, 
blackness went over him. 



Chapter XVII 


- GLORY - 

O ARS were moving. Wind slithered against 
the sail. Thord Firetooth lifted his head. He 
was on a ship—this was the Sea Bird he was aboard, 
on his own loftingen, with a fur robe pulled over 
him. 

What pain! He pressed a hand against skull 
top where was a clotted gash. He was full sore 
everywhere. What had happened? He lifted his 
head above the cover, thrust his body to sitting po¬ 
sition, stared about him. The ship was setting out 
to sea. That curving shore back there was Brat- 
talid. 

Leather-clad figures moved up to him—a group 
of his own men and mariners crowding together 
on the little deck. Broad smiles were on all faces. 

“Young chief, we got you out in a good time— 
eh, didn’t we, Bratta!” Dag-Halsing pounded 
jubilantly on his companion’s heavy-set shoulders. 

To the creak of sail in the wind, the story of 
rescue came out. Thord’s men had brought the 
ship into the main harbor and come ashore in the 
dusk, as the plan was. Instead of a peaceful wel¬ 
come, the strangers had found the town in an up- 

220 




GLORY 


221 


roar, pagans setting on Christians, street battles, 
houses turned into barricaded fortresses against all 
comers. 

In the night, Thord’s men had fought their way 
to the place of his imprisonment, had battered 
through walls, and had dragged him forth to the 
safety of the ship. Many a sailor bore a cracked 
head out of the battle. It had been a heavy fight 
to drag forth even one prisoner, their own leader. 

“Whither shall it be, Thord the Firetooth—back 
to Norway, or back to the wonder strand where we 
wintered?” Leather coats pressed about him. 

Thord got to his feet. Oh, that pain in his head! 
He tried to clear away the red mists before his eyes 
with a hand passed across his brow. The sea breeze 
helped him, blowing cold in the dim early dawn 
light. Now, at last he could think, see things clear. 

“Turn about the ship!” Thord’s voice, once he 
got a hold upon it, came roaring out, commandingly, 
“Turn about, head back for the port—all speed! 
The lur horns, don’t you hear them—” 

That wild bray of horns “Tu-tu-tu-tua!” 

The wailing lur horns, the death horns, “Tu-tu- 
tu-tu!” It came again rolling over the water from 
land, a sound all too reminiscent of the ancient 
bloody human sacrifices of old Norway. 

“My sister, my uncle, the old harper—they’ll 
be killing them on the Odin stone! On to shore, 
men! If I cannot save them—I—I can die with 
them!” 

“Nay, you mean we’d all die with them!” An 
ugly mutter ran through the pack of leather-clad 




222 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


men. “A fool’s errand, that,—not for us—we’ve 
had our taste of Greenland weapons over the 
head—” 

“Take the ship—set to sea—but first, you shall 
put me on land. I only need to go ashore—but now, 
while I am on ship, my order shall be law. Obey 
—or die! Get you down! To your places!” Like 
a madman, Thord Firetooth snatched up long bow 
and his arrow bag, drove men before him down 
from the loftin, down to the hold and to the oar 
thwarts. 

In his fiery fury he was dominant. Under that 
spell, men bent to oar and to steer pole. Too many 
times had they seen the power of Thord’s bow 
string—had seen his second arrow split his first 
arrow, and both flung aloft from the same bow. 
None wished to be the first to get an arrow in his 
midrift. There were ten arrows in the Firetooth’s 
bag. Ten men would fall before they could over¬ 
power him. 

Because of her sharp prow, the Sea Bird could 
make a quick turning. Steady plunge of oars—deep 
blue of water paling in the shallows—land, and 
scrape of ship to wharf! 

But when the Firetooth leaped ashore, he went 
not alone. A score of men were with him—old 
Helgi, Bratta and six soldiers, Halsing and a part 
of the oarsmen. Why? Ek—not a one of them 
could have put it into words, but—courage, it draws 
courage. 

Tramp , tramp , their hurrying footsteps echoed 
hollowly through this place of empty houses. A 



GLORY 


223 


breathless horror urged them faster, faster toward 
the wail of the lurs. 

“Tu-tu-tu!”—that brazen triumph of the death 
horns, so close now! 

Thord and his little body of faithful ones ran 
till their breath-heaves were sobbing gasps. They 
topped the last ridge, swayed to a standstill. In 
the white air one could see so far, so clear—oh, 
God, they could never get there in time! 

In one swift motion Thord Firetooth swung for¬ 
ward his long bow, set an arrow to the taut gut 
cord. 

There, below in the valley, a girl lay bound 
across the stone at the foot of a towering wooden 
idol. The blood bowl was at her throat. Kark 
Lakka, priest of Odin, was plunging down the 
dagger-knife. 

“Thora! Thora!” The Firetooth’s shout fol¬ 
lowed the twang of his bowstring, mingled with 
the pain-maddened howl of him who had held the 
knife. That bronze implement fell to the ground. 
Thord’s arrow had shot it from the priest’s now 
useless hand. 

A rumble of fury rose from the throng in the 
valley. In great strides, Thord and his few men 
rushed forward into the midst of this mob-anger. 

These Odin-worshipers—they would kill him! 
Let them. But first he must do what his heart 
had told him to do. 

Then came a brief respite, born of amazement 
at the audacity of this downward rush. Then the 
mob surged violently against Thord’s handful of 



224 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


men who had closed protectingly about Thora and 
the other bound ones. 

“Kill them! More offerings for the Old Gods!” 
rose a fierce shout. “More blood for the sacri¬ 
fice!” 

“Look—look, all men!” Thord leaped to the 
mound where stood the stone of sacrifice beneath 
the hideous leering of the ancient wooden idol. 
“Look! Look!” pealed Thord, dragging up the 
great stone with all his strength, poising it a mo¬ 
ment, then risking all in one mighty blow. Down 
he flung the stone, full against the idol, shatter¬ 
ing into splintered fragments this thing that men 
had worshiped. 

Screams of men and women filled the air, the 
crowd fell back all of a tremble, lifting scared 
eyes to witness the Old Gods’ thunderbolts descend 
upon this sacrilege—but their gaze saw a strange 
thing. Out of the broken idol poured vermin, in¬ 
sects, crawling worms—foul things that had bat¬ 
tened on the food offerings man had thrust down 
into the wooden god’s maw. 

“Look!” shouted Thord. “This god of yours 
sends no thunder crash against me! This god of 
yours was a wooden thing. Like as our old heathen 
religion was full of murders and lusts and blood 
offerings, so was this wooden thing you called a 
god, full of foulness! 

“Turn now,” thundered Thord the Firetooth, 
“turn now from heathendom, turn to the One True 
God. Pray—pray to the one high God of Love— 
the White Christ! Pray! ” 




GLORY 


225 


That fearless courage broke the spell of pagan¬ 
ism. Instead of dying for his faith, it was given 
to Thord the Firetooth to live for his faith. A 
tall, powerful figure, dazzling in the sun glint, he 
snatched up the broken dagger, bound it cross¬ 
wise to his sword blade, held the whole aloft to 
catch the light of the sun. 

“Before this—the Sign of the Cross of Christ 
—pray!” 

And there among the forever broken symbols 
of paganism shattered on the ground, the Norse¬ 
men of Greenland fell upon repentant knees and 
lifted up eyes to the Cross, the Sign of the One 
True God. 

By Thord Firetooth, the famine was ended. He 
divided his shipload of supplies among the starv¬ 
ing settlers. Then within the week, like an answer 
to prayer, the birds came, massed wedges flying 
north; the waters silvered with leaping fish; seals 
swept shorewards in black herds. Greenland be¬ 
came again a land of plenty. Thord and his men 
settled there. He and Halsing and Bratta and 
Helgi became pilots on a fleet of ships that many 
times sailed far south to the land where they had 
first wintered, the land of the great trees. From 
here they brought back huge precious timber, some 
of which was for Greenland trade, and some was 
sent on across the ocean to Old Norway. 

Never again in the four hundred and fifty years’ 
annals of the Norse colonization in the New World 
do we hear of a return to heathenism. To this day, 



226 


THORD FIRETOOTH 


in the Vatican records kept for nearly ten centuries 
at Rome, are listed the faithful tithings of the 
Greenland Church, paid in Greenland’s own pe¬ 
culiar style of wealth—sealskins and ivory and 
rich furs. 

In after years, Thord, grown wealthy in the 
New World, took Thora and all the rest of his 
household back to Nord Fjord forever. In those 
days Thord the Firetooth not only fought valiantly 
to win back Norway to the White Christ, but he 
also introduced into his homeland many peaceful 
arts of the Christian countries he had visited; 
candles with rush tapers; the hour glass; bridges 
and harbors and roads like unto those of Greek 
Constantinople. 

So after all, perhaps it was fated by the grace 
of God that Thord Firetooth should have been 
sold a slave into far lands that he might bring back 
much of good to his people. 
















































S^WwP* 


LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



j1Ms« , : i i kb|; tpfisgi 

IfililBIfw 




























































































